I Spoke Too Soon

I wrote a post the other day about how the father of the Maryland school shooter should be made an example of for letting his son get hold of his Glock pistol. The father's malfeasance resulted in the deaths of his son and the boy's girlfriend. It had been almost a week since the incident, and I thought I had waited long enough for all the facts to come out.

But I hadn't.

At first it seemed that the NRA's dream scenario had come true: a good guy with a gun had stopped a bad guy with a gun.

But it hadn't.

Because the Maryland school shooter committed suicide.

Austin Wyatt Rollins, the 17-year-old who opened fire on classmates at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland last week, injuring one and killing another, died from shooting himself in the head, officials investigating the case said Monday.

According to details released by the St. Mary's County sheriff's office, Rollins parked his car at 7:50 a.m. and walked through the school's main entrance two minutes later.

At 7:57 a.m., he approached classmate Jaelynn Willey, 16, and shot her once in the head with his father's Glock 9-mm pistol. That bullet also struck 14-year-old Desmond Barnes in the leg.

After firing the handgun, Rollins kept walking through the school, where he was confronted by school resource officer Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill just after 8 a.m. Their weapons went off simultaneously 31 seconds later, with Rollins shooting himself in the head and Gaskill shooting Rollins in the hand, officials said. 

Rollins was despondent and suicidal, following the typical pattern of domestic abusers: kill the girlfriend and commit suicide. He apparently had no interest in shooting up the school, but if he had, he could have shot dozens of other students in the three minutes between the shootings of his girlfriend and himself.

In summary: the NRA "good guy with a gun" theory is total bullshit.

This is why the only solution to preventing gun violence is to keep guns out of the hands of likely shooters. As long as the NRA gets its way, shooters are guaranteed have easy access to guns, and will have the ability to kill dozens of people before anyone can react.

Because, as we've seen countless time before, guns are not protection. In fact, for every instance that a gun in the home is used for self defense, there are 22 (twenty-two!) instances of suicide, assault perpetrated by the gun owner or family member, or an accidental shooting.

These one-off murders and suicides are the real problem with guns in America, not the flashier mass shootings that gets everyone so worked up.

The lesson parents should learn: people with kids just should not have guns.