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Eleven Minutes and 2.3 Miles Away Equals 26 Dead
Townhall.com ^ | January 6, 2013 | Political Calculations

Posted on 01/06/2013 8:17:13 AM PST by Kaslin

Following NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre's call for placing trained armed guards in each of the nation's public schools, gun control advocates went on the attack and refused to give the idea any meaningful consideration. We thought it might help to review the timeline of the shootings on 14 December 2012 to see if it might be a good idea.

Time Event
9:30:00 AM: Classes begin at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
9:35:53 AM: First known dispatch call - 911 Dispatch: "Sandy Hook School, Caller's indicated she thinks someone is shooting in the building."
9:36:15 AM: Shooting continues - Dispatch: "The individual I have on the phone is continuing to hear what he believes to be gun shots."
9:38:10 AM: Pause in shooting - "The shooting appears to have stopped. The school is in lock down."
9:38:50 AM: Police call for SWAT team - "We'll stage up the SWAT and go from there."
9:40:30 AM: Reports of shots fired - "Shooter's apparently still shooting in office area. Dickerson Drive."
9:40:55 AM: Connecticut State Police receive call and begin sending emergency units from western part of the state - "Troop 8 personnel, take Exit 10, left on 34, turn on Riverside Drive. Make sure you have your vests on."
9:43:45 AM: Female confirmed shot - Dispatch: "We have one female in Room 1 who has gunshot wound to the foot."
~9:45 AM: First responders/SWAT team arrive - begin an "active shooter search, checking every door, crack and crevice."
9:46:20 AM: Another report of person shot - Dispatch: "We've got an injured person in Room 9 with numerous gunshot wounds."
9:49:05 AM: Shooting finally stops approximately around 9:46 AM - "Negative on description. Shots were fired about three minutes ago."
9:53:25 AM: Suspect reported down - "Newtown's reporting one suspect down. The Building has now been cleared."
9:55:25 AM: Weapons report - "Be advised, we have multiple weapons. One rifle and a shotgun."
9:57:25 AM: Police notice to officers responding to call in plain clothes - "Any plain clothes responding, make sure you have you raid gear on, your raid gear on."
10:00:15 AM: Police complete search for any other potential suspects - "Ask the custodian, get a team up on the roof and clear the roof."

As best as we can tell from the timeline of the event, it took roughly 11 minutes for the first responders and police SWAT team to arrive at the school after the event began, after traveling the 2.3 miles to reach the school from the Newtown police station - a trip that in ordinary conditions would take approximately 7 minutes, not counting the time needed to get prepared to deal with the event. Their arrival precipitated the end of the event, as the suspect, Ryan Lanza, committed suicide shortly after realizing that armed police had arrived and were closing in on him.

Driving Directions from Newtown Connecticut City Hall/Police Station to Sandy Hook Elementary School

During those eleven minutes before the police arrived and finally closed in on his position, Lanza was completely unopposed by any armed individual, using the time to fire over a hundred rounds to kill 26 people - 6 adults and 20 children.

Would placing trained armed guards or police officers in the nation's public schools then really be so unreasonable? Shouldn't public officials have a special obligation to ensure the safety of our children when they are compelled to be placed in their care? Can there possibly be a good reason why the pro-gun control Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence's extensive 41 page-long list of all on and off-school campus shooting incidents since 31 January 1997 contains just one mention of any kind of security guard (for a 22-year old student offender, Law Thien Huynh, who first argued with, then killed security guard training class instructor Roberto Herrera, who had negatively criticized Huynh on previous occasions)?

Or is it good enough for public officials to place that kind of protection some eleven minutes and 2.3 miles away from the children in their care?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: banglist; guncontrol; secondamendment
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1 posted on 01/06/2013 8:17:16 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

“When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”


2 posted on 01/06/2013 8:18:59 AM PST by gorush (History repeats itself because human nature is static)
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To: Kaslin

Armed guards are good enough for the Obama daughters’ school............


3 posted on 01/06/2013 8:23:24 AM PST by yoe
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To: Kaslin

“Dial 911 and die...”


4 posted on 01/06/2013 8:27:50 AM PST by donozark (Kim Kardashian had her baby. Triplets! She named them Wilson, Spaulding and Rawlings.)
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To: Kaslin
Would placing trained armed guards or police officers in the nation's public schools then really be so unreasonable?

Yes, placing unionized Federally funded police on fat retirements in schools is a bad idea. Teaching school personnel in armed defense (and dispelling much liberal propaganda thereby) is a good idea. Offering preferential hiring to ex-military people with combat experience to teach is a good idea.

5 posted on 01/06/2013 8:27:56 AM PST by Carry_Okie (GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")
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To: gorush
“When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”

Nothing illustrates that fact more than this incident. Even at code blue, lights and sirens, they took 11 minutes to get there. I'm sure that they put their vest on and grabbed their shotgun before heading down the road so figure a couple of minutes for preparation. But still, unless posted on site, it takes time to get there.

6 posted on 01/06/2013 8:28:59 AM PST by meyer (Proud member of the 53%.)
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To: meyer

Our town has an average ten minutes and change for a code three response. Safety officer at a more rural HS near my house was told by county sheriff that it could be up to twenty minutes to get first LEO on scene if they called... BTW, my house is covered by same sheriffs dept. So myself, my neighbors, we are basically on our own. We are ready.


7 posted on 01/06/2013 8:38:43 AM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obama now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: Kaslin

Where I live in Washington state it would take a deputy forty-five minutes to get to our place. If he’s not busy elsewhere.


8 posted on 01/06/2013 8:43:00 AM PST by SkyDancer (Live your life in such a way that the Westboro church will want to picket your funeral.)
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To: Carry_Okie

“Yes, placing unionized Federally funded police on fat retirements in schools is a bad idea. Teaching school personnel in armed defense (and dispelling much liberal propaganda thereby) is a good idea. Offering preferential hiring to ex-military people with combat experience to teach is a good idea.”

I agree with the reasoning behind your arguments, but I also believe (prior to this shooting) if you had made the offer to train and equip the teachers and staff at the Sandy Hook elementary with firearms — that not a single one there would have taken up the offer.

In the majority of the “liberal areas”, I wouldn’t be surprised to find the “in-school sentiment” regarding such proposals to be similar.

I realize it’s different in places like Texas or Utah.

But that’s the way it is in the “deep blue” areas...


9 posted on 01/06/2013 8:50:24 AM PST by Road Glide
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To: Kaslin

So much for active shooter response from every LEO.....

First patrolman on scene should have an EBR as a basic long gun and rush to the sound of gunfire where schools are concerned. That’s the way we trained after the columbine fiasco.

First responders not SWAT ! With regards to active shooter in a school your not trying to contain and capture the shooter your trying to SAVE children and drive the bastard away from those kids by engaging the shooter as fast as possible.

Each patrol vehicle should have a semi-auto M4gery w light and redi-mag w sling as basic issue long gun.

That said a school employee with a concealed sidearm could have distracted , disrupted his plan or killed the shooter before he conducted wholesale slaughter of children.

Left has no problem visiting a school with their own armed security detail yet do not want those children protected in same manner as they are....

Vote people.... You miss elections of ANY kind your eligible to participate in an don’t ...your part of the problem.

Vote these SOB’s back to the ice age.... Vote with your dollars between elections. Starve the beast.

My opinion ....


10 posted on 01/06/2013 8:50:43 AM PST by Squantos ( Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet ...)
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To: Road Glide
But that’s the way it is in the “deep blue” areas...

I live in Santa Cruz County, California, so one should think I would know that. Hence the line, "and dispelling much liberal propaganda thereby."

The simple fix is, as I suggested, offering preferential hiring to ex military to be teachers and administrators. The combined weight of the liability for doing nothing and the cost of creating yet another administrative position on a full pension, complete with staffing problems accommodating days off duty for target practice and training, is a nightmare, especially in rural areas.

11 posted on 01/06/2013 8:57:00 AM PST by Carry_Okie (GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")
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To: Squantos
I hate to say it Squantos, but the problem is that the culture of unionized "officer safety" rules these days effectively preclude a single police officer in her $75,000 cruiser, however heavily armed, from rushing into a firefight without backup. She'll "secure the perimeter" or some such until the SWAT team gets there. /unPC "sexist" rant

IMO, the only true hero of the Newtown disaster was the principal who threw her unarmed body at that creep, and died. Anybody with the guts to do that would have used a weapon. The real (and only affordable) answer is training and arming adults in the schools, hopefully with a psychological screening to cull the all-too-likely and all-too-common mentally unfit employees in public schools. Just think: A mass refusal by teachers to train could induce a few mass-layoffs! :-) I can dream, can't I?

12 posted on 01/06/2013 9:08:23 AM PST by Carry_Okie (GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")
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To: Carry_Okie
hopefully with a psychological screening to cull the all-too-likely and all-too-common mentally unfit employees in public schools.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I do wonder about the mental fitness of many in our nation's government owned and run prison-like schools. Have you had the opportunity to read some of the posts from the government school defenders, many of whom are government school teachers?

13 posted on 01/06/2013 9:12:42 AM PST by wintertime
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To: Carry_Okie

I was a deputy sheriff .... We trained and planned / responded as I stated .... Active shooter, especially a school.... Never wait, inform dispatch as to where your making entry, leave your siren and lights blasting, gun up and start kicking doors , triple tap center mass anyone that refuses to drop their weapon.

Very simple, noise, run and gun to stop the threat or make them try an escape their killing ground

Anything less is bullshit as you state. PC be damned. Even sheep need sheepdogs.

Stay safe buddy... Hope yer well.


14 posted on 01/06/2013 9:30:51 AM PST by Squantos ( Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet ...)
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To: wintertime
Have you had the opportunity to read some of the posts from the government school defenders, many of whom are government school teachers?

Can't say as I've been that lucky, seeing as to me that's akin to asking me if I've "had the opportunity" to contract an infectious disease. Yuck.

Yes, I have considered the possibility of schools conducting an armed refusal of access by parents to their children. After all, children in Cuba have to surrender their kids, so why shouldn't things be "equal" here in the USA? Yeah, we'll get the UN right on that one...Or we could have some eco-nutball obsessed with global overpopulation offing the extra "breeders," or some gay "man" blowing away a teaser for refusing his "loving" advances... Etc.

Yep, been there, wondering what those rainbow psychotics in charge of our institutions of higher brainwashing would do next if we armed them. Don't like it a bit. Don't like cops there either. Don't like public schools one bit either, but then, you know that.

So, to me, this is a stop gap measure to keep the kids "safer" while the public goes through the slow realization that "socializing" children will never work. Hopefully we don't go bankrupt first.

15 posted on 01/06/2013 9:32:03 AM PST by Carry_Okie (GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")
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To: Kaslin

Liberals (e.g., gun control advocates) are willing to try anything, regardless of the expense, except something that might actually work.


16 posted on 01/06/2013 9:33:33 AM PST by Arm_Bears (Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile has killed more people than my guns.)
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To: Squantos
Never wait, inform dispatch as to where your making entry, leave your siren and lights blasting, gun up and start kicking doors , triple tap center mass anyone that refuses to drop their weapon.

I wish it was that way in California, but from what I've seen here lately, I'm not at all hopeful. It seems to take two cruisers to make a simple traffic stop these days, even in suburbia.

17 posted on 01/06/2013 9:35:17 AM PST by Carry_Okie (GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")
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To: Kaslin

When did elementary school begin at 9:30am. I seem to remember having to be at school at 8:00am.


18 posted on 01/06/2013 9:36:25 AM PST by Conservative4Ever (I'm going Galt)
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To: Kaslin

instead of placing armed guards in locations crazy people may shoot up...

how about putting armed guards around crazy people?


19 posted on 01/06/2013 9:42:15 AM PST by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: Conservative4Ever

If you noticed the author got also the name of the killer wrong. Ryan Lanza was the 24 year old brother of the shooter Adam Lanza 20


20 posted on 01/06/2013 10:00:00 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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