On Jan. 17, 1989, Rob Young happily walked to school sporting a brand-new pair of LA Gear tennis shoes he had received for Christmas. He still remembers how good those shoes felt on his 6-year-old feet.
Later that day, he sat under his desk and wondered if he was going to be in trouble over the blood soaking into his shoes. His best friend and fellow first-grader, Scotty, sat next to him, contemplating the gaping wound in his own leg.
“And that’s when he told me, ‘You know, Robbie, I think we’ve been shot,’” Young said.
As children began running and screaming, Young felt something sweep his feet up over his head and then slam him to the ground as something impacted his chest. One of the bullets passed through his foot, narrowly missing the bones. A second bullet lodged in his chest, where it remains today.
Young said investigators believe the second bullet ricocheted off the ground before hitting him: a bullet of that caliber could have easily passed through his body if it hadn’t been slowed. Doctors determined that removing the bullet was too risky.
Five children were killed, and 30 other people, including a teacher, were injured.
The shooting was the impetus for California officials to write the state’s—and the nation’s—first ban on certain semiautomatic rifles, sometimes called “assault weapons.” But that was not the end of the response, the ripples of which are still being felt today.
Last September, President Joe Biden opened the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. He recently signed executive orders regulating homemade guns and promoting active shooter drills in schools. Vice President Kamala Harris has promised to do more if she is elected to replace her boss.
“We know how to stop these tragedies, and it is a false choice to suggest you are either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away. I am in favor of the Second Amendment,” Harris said on Sept. 26 ahead of Biden’s signing the order.
“I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban, and pass universal background checks, safe storage laws, and red flag laws.”
Many of the survivors of what has come to be known as the Stockton schoolyard shooting became champions of gun control.
However, Young took a different path, going on to a career in law enforcement. The best thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, he said.
He points out that the Stockton shooter ended his rampage by shooting himself, but did so only after he realized armed police had arrived.
“I always realized that the gun was just a tool that a crazy man used,” Young said. “Would you ever blame a vehicle for a drunk driver who plows into a bunch of kids on a park bench? It didn’t make sense to me to blame an inanimate object.”
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Later that day, he sat under his desk and wondered if he was going to be in trouble over the blood soaking into his shoes. His best friend and fellow first-grader, Scotty, sat next to him, contemplating the gaping wound in his own leg.
“And that’s when he told me, ‘You know, Robbie, I think we’ve been shot,’” Young said.
The Stockton Schoolyard Shooting
On that foggy morning 35 years ago, as Young and his friends played kickball, a disaffected loner sprayed the Cleveland Elementary School playground in Stockton, California, with bullets from an AK-style semiautomatic rifle.As children began running and screaming, Young felt something sweep his feet up over his head and then slam him to the ground as something impacted his chest. One of the bullets passed through his foot, narrowly missing the bones. A second bullet lodged in his chest, where it remains today.
Young said investigators believe the second bullet ricocheted off the ground before hitting him: a bullet of that caliber could have easily passed through his body if it hadn’t been slowed. Doctors determined that removing the bullet was too risky.
Five children were killed, and 30 other people, including a teacher, were injured.
The shooting was the impetus for California officials to write the state’s—and the nation’s—first ban on certain semiautomatic rifles, sometimes called “assault weapons.” But that was not the end of the response, the ripples of which are still being felt today.
Last September, President Joe Biden opened the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. He recently signed executive orders regulating homemade guns and promoting active shooter drills in schools. Vice President Kamala Harris has promised to do more if she is elected to replace her boss.
“We know how to stop these tragedies, and it is a false choice to suggest you are either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away. I am in favor of the Second Amendment,” Harris said on Sept. 26 ahead of Biden’s signing the order.
“I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban, and pass universal background checks, safe storage laws, and red flag laws.”
Many of the survivors of what has come to be known as the Stockton schoolyard shooting became champions of gun control.
However, Young took a different path, going on to a career in law enforcement. The best thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, he said.
He points out that the Stockton shooter ended his rampage by shooting himself, but did so only after he realized armed police had arrived.
“I always realized that the gun was just a tool that a crazy man used,” Young said. “Would you ever blame a vehicle for a drunk driver who plows into a bunch of kids on a park bench? It didn’t make sense to me to blame an inanimate object.”
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Some Mass Shooting Survivors Want More Good Guys With Guns | ZeroHedge
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