As you may have read, a gunman down in Panama City, Florida walked into a school board meeting, sprayed a V for Vendetta symbol on the wall, walked around with a gun, making a lot of statements, started shooting and eventually was shot by a deputy, then killed himself. (Reports differ on this, but the most credible reports are that he used his gun on himself.)
This video is pretty unbelievable, especially the part where a woman sneaks behind him and whacks him with her purse. And gets worse from there.
Bleeding Cool has the man’s Facebook page, covered with V for Vendetta imagery. The man — identified as Clay Duke — claimed his wife had recently been fired by the school board.
There ir video showing what happens after this. Somebody shoots at him from the back.
http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Ds5Rmr-X7B3c%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded
This is so terrible and sad. You can tell that he was really only trying to scare them. If you really want to kill someone at that close a range, it’s far to easy. Unfortunately, events like this are a product of our times. With so much corruption and ineptitude in our system, more and more people are going to want a revolution. It’s just to bad that this man only saw the violence of V for Vendetta (and I’m speaking of the book, but he may have been thinking of the movie) and not the symbolism or tragedy of it. Those who use violence will only even find violence. He should have sought love. With love, only good things can be brought into the world.
Another example of vigilantism, from thirty years ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/us/16bully.html
I guess there was talk at first of it being a capgun, since he didn’t hit anyone…but you can clearly see his first shot that hit the desk blowing papers towards the wall.
The only thing that I find odd about the reporting of the story so far is that there’s video of him getting hit and going down, video of the officer who shot at him being consoled (officer: “I thought he’d killed you all!”), but no video in between where the shooter reportedly would have made the final shot on himself. Why would an officer who landed a few non-lethal hits on someone be more in need of being consoled than the people who were just shot at? Seems a little odd is all.
Oops, correct: “I thought he shot y’all!,” while being reassured he did the right thing.
http://www.panhandleparade.com/index.php/mbb/article/crisis_video_gunman_goes_down/27228/
“This is so terrible and sad. You can tell that he was really only trying to scare them. If you really want to kill someone at that close a range, it’s far to easy. ”
Sorry, I don’t agree. I think he was working up his nerve, until he did the deed. It looks like he meant to hit someone. Guns and bullets are heavy, and there’s also recoil. He probably just missed. And even if he did only want to scare them, he succeeded enough for the officer to blast him.
Yes, I had considered those things as well. Watch him though. See how slow and methodically he moves. He wants them to see him take aim, feel the fear, get out of the way. I’m sure he went in there knowing he was going to die, but a man serious about killing other people would have done so. That lady with the purse might as well have thrown herself in front of his gone. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just giving my impression. I feel that we as a society are far to fond of making unforgivable monsters out of people in our minds. We parade them in front of our youth, to mold their young minds into thinking our way, when all they are, are mentally I’ll people who are misrepresenting a majority with their foolish actions. “See? We’ve got to get them, before they get us.” I’m not saying this is you Rich. I’m just saying that we don’t know. I feel sad for the people he hurt, more mentally than anything. I believe that was his intention. I feel sad that he felt it needed to come to that. He was wrong. He was wrong to put his death on that poor police man. He was wrong to through his life away like that, but I’m just not ready to brand him a killer.
Sorry for the typos. It’s been a really long day.
“This is so terrible and sad. You can tell that he was really only trying to scare them. If you really want to kill someone at that close a range, it’s far to easy. ”
It really isn’t.
If you are trained, if you maintain your composure, then yes, it’s easy to hit somebody at that range.
But handguns aren’t just point and shoot weapons, as this aptly demonstrates. In a high stress situation, even people with training don’t find it easy.
This video demonstrates both sides of this. Dull failed to hit the man at point blank range, and accidentally fires a round into the floor.
The man who shot him, who is trained in the use of a handgun, fails to hit him with most of his shots from point blank range and when he does hit him, it’s not an immediately lethal wound.
Guns are, by their nature, extremely dangerous. But his failure to not what he was aiming for isn’t evidence that he wasn’t try to kill him.