Active Shooter Situation in CA

[BoSoxGal]

In a place that provides services to the developmentally disabled.


Sheriff's dept. says multiple victims.


I'm at the auto service place watching CNN. The coverage is super stressful.

[BoSoxGal]

CNN is reporting 10-20 people shot based on report of employee on scene via text to her dad.

Guy being interviewed says 2 or 3 shooters.

[BoSoxGal]

Killers FLED in dark SUV, left a suspicious object that is being checked out by bomb squad.

Up to 30 victims is the newest report.

[Econoline]

Again????? Already?????

Here's the story that The Onion recycles every time something like this happens:

• ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

[BoSoxGal]

I'm sitting with a half dozen Montanans and listening to the comments about how the problem is that this was a 'soft target' and more 'good' people need to be carrying guns.

[Lord Jim]

I was out running errands and I didn't have the radio on, so I'm just now tuning into the news...

Guy being interviewed says 2 or 3 shooters

If that turns out to be accurate, it will be very unusual. Frequently in these shooter situations, out of fear and confusion witnesses will believe there are more than one shooter when ultimately it turns out to be one person...

If it is accurate, that would seem to rule out any sort domestic or disgruntled employee explanation...

Who would have a beef against the developmentally disabled?

[Joe Guy]

3 shooters wearing military type clothing that did the shooting and then left in a black SUV. Earlier on CNN one 'expert' commentator was carrying on about how this is probably terrorism because it had to be planned and they hit a 'soft target'.

It's always nice when calm heads prevail.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Maybe it's terrorism - I don't know. Doesn't anyone just kill for fun any more? I don't mean that to be some kind of joke. Were Leopold and Loeb terrorists? The Washington sniper? That guy in the Texas tower? The Manson family? etc. etc. I'm getting a bit tired of the word "terrorism" - shouldn't there be some kind of political manifesto involved?

How awful this all is

[Lord Jim]

Were Leopold and Loeb terrorists? The Washington sniper? That guy in the Texas tower? The Manson family?

That depends Meade...

Were they white conservative Christians?

[Big RR]

Come on Jim, you know if they had Arabic names the media would be screaming "terrorism"; sensationalism sells.

[Lord Jim]

The police are holding a press conference...

Thus far 14 confirmed dead, 14 more injured, suspects still at large...

Whatever their motives turn out to be, they REALLY need to get these guys ASAP...

The fact that they did not go out in a "blaze of glory" at the scene indicates that there is a very strong probability that they will strike again...

[Lord Jim]

The city of San Bernadino has essentially gone into lock-down...the local government buildings have evacuated and shut down; kids are being held in lock down at their schools through out the entire school district...

[BoSoxGal]

I just got out of the dealership thank goodness! I don't see how people can watch TV news these days, the manner of coverage is very stressful!

I'm thinking I might take a few months totally offline when I get to Maine, especially if we keep having mass shootings every other day.

[Lord Jim]

Apparently these guys were very well organized and methodical in carrying out this operation; they wore black and also ski masks to hide their identities...

And there are thousands of black SUVs in Southern California. (And if these guys are truly as well organized as they are being reported to be, they have probably either put that car in a hidden location, or it may have been stolen and they've ditched it.)

Given the extent to which these guys have gone to conceal their identities and assure that they would be able to escape before they were penned in by the cops, it is going to take a truly massive effort (and frankly some lucky breaks) to either apprehend or kill these guys before they strike again...

Which they could do later today, tomorrow, or next week...

When it comes to soft targets, Southern California is a very target rich environment...

ETA:

And of course it's now been nearly three hours since they escaped, so there's no guarantee that they're even still in So Cal...

The one thing I've heard reported that may give a glimmer of hope at identifying these dirt bags is that apparently they attacked a Christmas party...

That could be just a coincidental event, but it's also possible that it indicates at least one of these guys had some inside knowledge of what was going on at the place that was struck. That would indicate some sort of association, and can at least serve as starting point for identifying potential suspects...

[Lord Jim]

Thank God...

They somehow managed to identify the vehicle...

There was an exchange of gun fire; one dirt bag appears to be down, one alive in the car, and one got away on foot...

It's obviously not good that one guy is still at large, but at least now the area that is potentially endangered is far more contained...

[rubato]

Meanwhile, congress is given an opportunity to undo a mistake:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to- ... &tid=ss_tw

Hours before San Bernardino shooting, doctors urged Congress to lift ban on gun violence research

On Wednesday morning, a group of doctors in white coats arrived on Capitol Hill to deliver a petition to Congress. Signed by more than 2,000 physicians around the country, it pleads with lawmakers to lift a restriction that for nearly two decades has essentially blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence.

Joined by a handful of Democratic lawmakers, the doctors spoke about the need to view gun violence as a public health epidemic and research ways to solve it – as the country would with any disease causing the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.

“It is disappointing that we have made little progress over the past 20 years in finding solutions to gun violence," said Nina Agrawal, a New York physician and member of the advocacy group Doctors for America, according to the group's Twitter feed.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

If the government wants to commission an independent honest study on "gun violence" (I put it in quotation marks because "gun violence" is really just a sort of lazy short hand that lumps together a collection of very different problems that we'd probably be better off addressing individually) okay, (I can think of worse things the government wastes money on) but I see absolutely no logic whatsoever in having the Centers For Disease Control having the brief...

It would make just as much sense to have the Bureau of Inland Fisheries conduct the study...

"Gun violence" is in no way a "disease" except in the minds of some people in a metaphorical sense; the CDC doesn't deal with metaphorical diseases; it deals with actual real ones...

If one wishes to call "gun violence" a "disease" then they are making an ideological choice; they are certainly not making a characterization based on anything remotely scientific...

If the CDC is going to morph itself into the "Centers For Control Of Anything that Kills Anybody" are they also looking to do studies on people falling down the stairs or slipping in bath tubs?

[BoSoxGal]

Gun violence caused by emotional/mental distress IS a disease; mental health research and services is the most under-funded of medical issues, from what I've heard - I welcome one of you retired researchers with lots more time to bring some stats.

I know that where I live, we have a very high rate of suicide and a VERY low rate of mental health services availability. I think we need to prioritize this research and begin to implement real interventions, because however you look at it, we have a very high rate of gun violence of all kinds compared to other developed nations, and we are quite simply lacking in morals if we keep allowing it to continue unabated.

It seems to me that all the sane responsible gun owners (I've got a concealed carry license myself), couldn't argue with mental health screenings to weed out the ones who aren't sane.

But those screenings need to come early and not only in the context of gun purchase applications; that's where the CDC comes in. We need to recognize the mental health issues in our society which stem from not providing intervention readily to anyone who wants it, and perhaps screenings of schoolchildren to catch issues early and provide plentiful resources to intervene.

I think the cost of good mental health services would be far less dear than the cost of all these senseless deaths, every single day. I've got PTSD just from watching the news anymore, and I barely watch TV. How many of us are being wounded by allowing our society to be so violent???

[liberty]

Chillout Yankees, drop the panic the chances of any one of you or your family being involved in one of these incidences is low. You have a better chance of being killed on the highway. Unfortunately the same is not true for the intercity ghetto; they have a good chance of being shot.

[Long Run]

Totally agree on increases/improvement in mental health care and research. But the doctor/CDC request appears to go way beyond mental health to all gun violence.