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A CHILD HAS died from his injuries after a shooting at a school in southern California yesterday.
A man walked into the school and shot dead his estranged wife in front of her students, killing an eight-year-old boy in the crossfire before turning his gun on himself.
Police said local resident Cedric Anderson had checked into the office as a visitor after entering the campus in the city of San Bernardino and going to the special needs classroom, where he opened fire on Karen Elaine Smith, 53, as she was teaching.
Officers said Anderson, also 53, had only targeted Smith but two students were caught in the crossfire and one of them, Jonathan Martinez, died later in hospital.
“This does appear to have been a murder-suicide with both male adult and female adult victim succumbing to injuries, with the male succumbing to a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Lieutenant Mike Madden of the San Bernardino Police Department told a news conference.
Police said initially the two wounded students had been listed as critical but later confirmed Martinez’s death.
Students at North Park Elementary School — which has around 500 students — were transported to a nearby campus, where they were “having snacks, playing games and watching a Disney movie,” the police department tweeted.
Many panicked parents and relatives who rushed to the school had to endure waits of several agonising hours before they could be certain that their child was not among the victims.
“I saw blood splashing on the wall. I ran as fast as I can. I lost a shoe,” one student told AFP.
An 11-year-old boy told AFP he was in the middle of a maths test when he heard the gunfire.
“I started feeling really scared from the SWAT team, and people from the police station came through the door to walk us out we had to walk with our hands up,” he said.
Massacre
San Bernardino, about an hour’s drive east of Los Angeles, was the scene of horrific violence when Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik gunned down 14 people and wounded 22 others in December 2015 before being shot dead by police.
At the time, before the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, it was the deadliest attack on US soil since 11 September, 2001.
Pakistani-born Malik — who met her future US-born husband on a Muslim dating website and married him in Saudi Arabia — had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group on Facebook and was instrumental in radicalising him.
Monday’s shooting will likely reignite the debate on gun violence in the US, where attempts to put in place tougher gun control measures have failed, despite a series of mass killings.
In one of the most notorious school shootings in modern US history, 20 children and six staff were massacred in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.
In June last year, 49 people were killed in a shooting rampage at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
“School campuses are sacred spaces where children should be free to learn, play and grow without threat of violence,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement.
“Today’s shooting… is a reminder that deadly weapons can shatter that sense of security, mercilessly and without warning — leaving parents and educators struggling to address the questions, fears and anxieties that gun violence creates for our young people.”
Gun lobby
More than 33,000 American residents die every year from guns, including suicides, a rate far higher than in other Western countries.
While Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton vowed to fight the gun lobby during last year’s election campaign, President Donald Trump promised to defend the right to bear arms and said he sometimes carried a gun.
In February, Trump signed a measure into law blocking an Obama-era rule designed to keep guns out of the hands of certain mentally ill people.
The rule aimed to prevent an estimated 75,000 people with mental disorders from being able to buy firearms as part of Obama’s efforts to strengthen the federal background check system in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.
Adam Lanza, 20, who shot dead his mother using her guns before killing the students, adults and himself, had Asperger’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The Obama administration rule required the Social Security Administration to send in the names of beneficiaries with mental impairments who also have a third party manage their benefits.
But the Republican-majority Senate, backed by the National Rifle Association pro-gun lobby and disabled advocacy groups, voted 57-43 to overturn the regulation.
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Selfish CU&T
@Gerry: deja vu all over again
And the land of the free and the home of the GUN. Dumpest race on the planet .
@Ivan Enoughofit: oh the irony… Hahaha
Dumpest race on the planet indeed
@Ivan Enoughofit: American is a race?
When guns are ubiquitous and can so easily be acquired and when there is a thriving gun culture, it is a natural and probable consequence that guns will be used as a method of resolving grievances and domestic disputes.
The 8 year old deceased boy was sacrificed on the altar of Amercian devotion to the 2nd Amendment.
An average of 8 children per day die in the USA as a result of gun incidents, mostly domestic in nature.
@Tony Daly:
“An average of 8 children per day die in the USA as a result of gun incidents, mostly domestic in nature.”
You’ve been called out on this before and you still use this statistic.
The ’8 children per day’ statistic counts all shootings involving people aged 0-25. What this means is everything from a 2 year old who picks up a loaded revolver to a 21 year old drug dealer who gets shot in a deal gone wrong was thrown in to come to that figure.
Bare in mind that the single leading cause of firearm deaths in the US is gang violence and the leading demographic in gang violence is black and hispanic youths aged 16-25. All of those are lumped in with that statistic.
@Jason Culligan: Can you provide your source regards the single leading cause of firearm deaths in the US is gang violence ?
@Jason Culligan: the leading cause of gun death is the US is nor gang related.
The figures are for children to the age of 18.
@Jason Culligan: you also ignore gun accidents, suicides by gun and mistaken identity shootings.
The majority of gun related fatalities are not gang related but you already know that.
ANOTHER woman to be added to this list.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cGt6O5EG9W47K7_VViPFI4RoP_cJ_riCrbJZDbd3lWo/edit
Can people honestly not see that this poor child lost his life because of MALE VIOLENCE?
How many women have EVER gone into a school to shoot their ex-husbands in front of innocent children?
Men are responsible for 98% of mass shootings, but instead of examining why that is everyone immediately goes to “oh guns are so available, that’s clearly the problem”, when that’s just one factor in it.
Everyone here will accuse me of man-hating, and I’m loathe to say that I’m not (for the millionth time), but we ALL need to examine why violence is such a big issue for the males of the population around the world when we’re all suffering from it. And now a poor little boy has had his life cut short because another man decided that he wasn’t going to let his wife live without him.
@Veronica: I would describe it as “guns are so available to men”.
The male psyche is if there is an instrument around, they will use it.
If a man has a hammer, everything is a nail.
If a man has a gun, he will want to use it if the situation arises and he will sometimes make the situation so that he can use it.
I don’t consider it man-hating to point out that gun related violence is predominantly a male phenomenon. The fact that you are accurate will not make that assertion popular with men.
@Veronica: You’re an idiot.
@Veronica: that’s a very simple explanation. Do you really think she had no part to play in this? How can you presume she is the innocent one?(not trying to justify his actions) Could be years of psychological torture behind this. We don’t and never will no all the facts. There is usually more to these things than meets the eyes
@Philip King: Men have been murdering their partners and ex-partners since the dawn of time for the same reasons as always, one of the being feeling rejected. Leaving an abusive partner is the most dangerous point for a woman, that’s when you’re most likely to be killed.
>How can you presume she is the innocent one?
Because she didn’t go to his workplace to kill him in front of bystanders, also killing one of those bystanders.
>Could be years of psychological torture behind this
There could be, but that’s generally the case when a woman kills her husband: he was abusing her for years. As far as I’m aware, that’s extremely rare the other way around.
Also, going to her workplace and shooting her in front of a crowd of children doesn’t smack of “abused husband”. It smacks of someone wielding power and making sure that she knew he was traumatising those children and possibly killing them, and making sure the last thoughts she had were of him.
>There is usually more to these things than meets the eyes
Not really, it generally follows a pretty simple formula. Man feels rejected by woman, either because she’s left him or he perceives things as she’s going to leave him, and he murders her. I would imagine that the cases where a man is killing his female abuser is extremely low. These men have typically been abusing women for years before they go all the way and kill women. I’d actually be really interested to find out more about men killing women in public as a form of “self defence from domestic abuse” perpetrated by the woman.
@Philip King: there is no evidence that the male perpetrator was the subject of torture. The known facts are that a male perpetrator invaded a school, shot dead a woman, and killed one boy and injured another child. That’s no a hen pecked individual. That is a killer with a gun who cared not if children were killed whilst taking out a grievance by murdering defenceless woman. I suggest that we let the facts speak for themselves.
@CeannairBlue: your comment is idiotic.
@Veronica: I note the spreadsheet. 322 women murdered to 10th April 2017 by men in circumstances where the male murderers knew the victims. It is horrifyijng and sadly it does back up your point in vivid and telling way. There is a gender factor in this.
@Veronica: men are more prone to violence ergo in a society where guns are prevalent men will commit more gun crime. But according to some giving people more guns will help.
@Veronica: that’s because men are now the subjugated gender in this authoritarian, matriarchal society imposed upon us by the cultural Marxists .
@Gabrielle: poor and sad men. All that is left to us is to go on mass killing rampages, killing women and children.
Love to know where this nutter got his gun.
@Martin Flood: is that a serious question?do you know anything about America?
@Martin Flood: anywhere since Trump removed the protection of the mentally ill from buying guns.
@Deborah Behan: If they gave a shit about reducing mass shootings in America they would introduce laws preventing males from having access to guns, considering that being male is virtually a pre-requisite to committing a mass murder but being mentally ill is not.
@Veronica: valid point that gun violence is predominantly a male phenomenon. The practical problem would be limiting access to guns by men, who will demand will access to guns and take them.
@Red hurley: Did I offend you Red?
@Veronica: Once again, you are an idiot who lives in a world where women are perfect little creatures who never break the law.
@CeannairBlue: Can you tell me the last five times a women committed a mass shooting anywhere in the world?
@Veronica:
Mass shootings by women are incredibly rare. Tashfeen Malik is a rare example of one. However while women are rarely directly involved there are a number of cases where a woman actively helped a male organise and commit a mass shooting.
Now, how common are female suicide bombers? Mass murder is not above the female mind, it’s merely the form of mass killing that varies.
@Jason Culligan: “Now, how common are female suicide bombers? Mass murder is not above the female mind, it’s merely the form of mass killing that varies.” What’s your point other than bring a reason to have a go at muslims into the thread? Can’t use the marlowemallow account anymore to do that?
Less than 15% overall is the response btw . . .
@Veronica: I’m not here to help a delusional troll thanks, do your own research.
It’s just hilarious how you take a crime committed by a man and turn it into a feminist issue. Pathetic.
@CeannairBlue: I didn’t say it was a feminist issue, I said it was a male violence issue.
>do your own research.
With the way men are pumping out the mass killings I don’t even need to do research, I just need to log in to whatever news source I find and there’ll be some more atrocities committed by men. Burying your head in the sand doesn’t help men, and it certainly doesn’t help women (not that you’d have any interest in that). Get a grip and start looking at things the way they are, not the way you want them to be. Make the changes you want to see in society.
Let’s keep it local. Who ran mother and baby homes/magdalene laundries. Are there women in jail for violence/neglect/assault? Or is it all the fault of the males in their lives. Some people are mean/bad and some of those are women
@paddy: yes some are women. But most are men. Most of the atrocities committed around the globe are by men. You can’t argue with fact.
You see. Echo chambers. Men are violent. Women are victims. Americans are dumb . Trump is whatever!
Arguing over the corpse of an 8 year old kid who just went to school. Proud?
@paddy: It’s not an echo chamber effect to point of that men ARE violent, and that a woman and young child lost their lives because of that violence and entitlement.
@Veronica: mentally unstable rather than entitled- is that possible?
@paddy: reflecting Veronica’s point, how often do we see mentally unstable women entering schools or public places and engaging in retaliatory shootings or mass killings?
@Tony Daly:
We don’t, however we do see them engaging in far more acts of psychological abuse compared to men.
Men are more likely to commit acts of physical violence whereas women are more likely to commit acts of psychological violence. Inevitably violence is violence regardless of the form it takes.
@Jason Culligan: I hate agreeing with you but there it is. Damn.
@Jason Culligan: physical damage maims and kills.
Psychological damage is a subjective issue. It is real but is very difficult to prove or disprove.
Men are more inclined to be dangerous than women.
Were the civil rights of the 8 year old child breached?
And google Tashfeen Malik, the scissors sisters, Zara barayeva,Aileen Wuronos , Karen Matthews , rosemary west and the fact that women assault their children in equal proportion to men
http://www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/176/567
Violence isn’t a uniquely male action but I’ll shut up now and bring my own two kids for a long walk and remind myself that I am blessed
@paddy: numerical rarities and generally under the influence of male killers.
Be careful that no women attack you while you are out.
@Tony Daly: again- a man is at fault because of a woman’s actions,
@paddy: men are at fault for their own violent actions.
I like how the article includes a photo of a couple cops but no picture or description of the killer and no mention of his history of violence and interest in black terrorism and so on.
Naughty!
@Naberius:
Interesting that you mentioned that. The Reuters, Associated Press, CNN and other articles haven’t shown any photos of the alleged perpetrator even though the SBPD Twitter page posted a photo of the couple yesterday already.
Fox, on the other hand, was more than willing to.
Fox is great! MAGA!
@Jason Culligan:
Dirty aul Fox reporting accurately, hehe!
@Naberius: Or his worship at Saddleback Church. Maybe god told him to do it.
@DaisyChainsaw:
Doubt it.
@Naberius:
The killer doesn’t deserve to be named or have he’s picture in the media . As like Mark Chapman the media gave him what he wanted fame and recognition which isn’t deserved.
This has to be the most messed up comment section on here in a while, no sympathy for a dead woman and child, just vitriol for men and how we’re all crazed lunatics with violent tendencies….
@Simon Moore: sadly, the vast majority of the perpetrators are men but the vast majority of men are not perpetrators. No assertion has been made that all men are crazed lunatics with violent tendencies.
@Tony Daly:
>No assertion has been made that all men are crazed lunatics with violent tendencies.
Exactly, but so many of the male commenters here can’t see past themselves to recognise that male violence is a very serious issue, and that it’s damaging men too (which inevitably needs to be pointed out too, because damage against women and children isn’t enough to make them see it).
>no sympathy for a dead woman and child
I have nothing but sympathy for them, and pure revulsion for the man that took their lives. I also have huge sympathy for all the hundreds (possibly thousands by now) of women around the world killed by men so far just this year.
Men killing women is a male issue, but instead of examining that you all just whinge about how “someone on the internet said men do bad things and it made me feel bad because I’m a man and I don’t do those things”. So what, just because you don’t murder women doesn’t mean that your attitude isn’t part of the problem. I have no sympathy whatsoever for domestic abusers and murderers, it’s not my fault that the people falling into that loathsome group are mostly men.
Veronica- google the women in this article and I’m not a woman hater but sure that never stopped namecalling https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-sparse-history-of-female-rampage-killers
@paddy: Excellent, a handful of examples of mass murders committed by women over the last 50 years. Now look up how many were committed by men in the last 5 years.
@paddy: that proves Veronica’s point. Female rampage killers are a rarity compared to make rampage killers.
@Veronica:
You seem to have a deep-rooted issue with men Veronica.
@Jason Culligan: Terrifying isn’t it ?
@CeannairBlue: lol, a randomer on the internet talking about male violence is “terrifying” to you? Thank god you’re not a woman and don’t have to deal with all that brings, I don’t think you’d ever be able to leave the house (not that the man in it isn’t likely to kill you either), if you find what I’m saying “terrifying”.
https://www.thoughtco.com/mothers-who-kill-their-children-971322
Patriarchy or mental illness?
Like ,what is the point of shooting children ,men and women you hate ,j get that but why children
@Slew Lok: Power, control, terror, infamy. Murdering his wife in front of a classroom of young children, including some with special needs, was him showing that he was the master of his property and all would remember him. A religious, violent, control freak.
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