All it would have taken is one person in the audience with a gun to blast him while his back was turned. Whether or not guns are good or bad for society they are here to stay.

It does look like maybe his heart wasn't in the killing. I don't think he would have missed, especially that first shot, if he were fully committed to murder, and not just mayhem.

Reminds me a litle of that scene fom Pulp Fiction, where the intended victim of the two hitmen jumps out of a bathroom and fires of a mess of shots at close range. After, Samuel Jackson's character looks at the pattern of bullet holes in the wall behind him, and figures he survived only by divine intervention.

@3: Yes, we need *more* guns in school board meetings, so when one of those additional people with guns has a mental breakdown, others of the additional people with more guns is there to shoot them. Your logic is impeccable, albeit fairly ovoid-shaped.

And Charles, the man brought a gun to a school board meeting, but wasn't "in his heart a killer"? WTF. If he had been a rich man, you would have posted about the fundamental bloodthirstiness of the anti-post-neo-liberal elites when thwarted by socio-egalatarian bureaucracies, or some such drivel.

Someone who takes a gun to a meeting with the intent of shooting people is, by definition, in their heart a killer. Maybe a mentally ill killer, maybe a a product of blah blah blah, but you don't shoot someone on cold blood unless you want to kill them.

can we change this conversation over to that dumb woman with the purse?
If you are going to attack someone with a gun you do not use a god damn soft leather purse.......what the hell was her expected result that he would fall down to the ground and little birdies and stars would circle his head?

@8 - it worked when Ruth Buzzy did it on Laugh-In.

@8 - I *think* she was trying to hit the gun out of his hand? Or something? Doesn't look like she aims for his head. Not that that makes the handbag much more effective...

Attn Bureaucrats: your 'numbers' are real people.

#8, ginger is my new hero. i mean, yeah she totally fumbled on that one and it was both dangerous and misguided, but still she came out swinging...

@8 - yeah, it was stupid (she should have picked up a tire iron and gone for his head, but, looking around my office, the most lethal thing I have ready to hand is my Thermos), but the woman still has balls of brass for trying. I'm glad he didn't shoot her.

If you don't have a whole lot of arm strength and you need to quickly take down a man with a gun from behind, you reach around his neck with both hands and dig your fingers into his trachea right between the clavicles (collarbones). You can crush the trachea pretty effectively (sometimes lethally, with enough force), and unless he's been through a lot of military training, he'll panic, his hands will go to his throat, and you can disarm him and kick him in the balls pretty easily.

@14 - Problem with that scenario is, though, that his trigger finger would almost certainly have tightened - and who would have gotten shot? Maybe no one, but most people are much too freaked out by guns to risk that. Also, you can dislodge a throat grip from the rear pretty quickly by bringing your arms up straight from below and twisting.

I still think a tire iron or a dictionary (probably more accessible in a school district building) to the back of the head would have been better than a slapstick whack with the purse, but I give her credit for trying!

That woman is a fucking hero. She tried to protect those men, knowing she could die. You people calling her stupid are assholes, straight up. Would you have the guts to take the chance she did to save someone else's life?

I would not have been so brave. Those men are lucky to know her.

@16 - I agree with you, Irena, although she said herself in an interview that, in retrospect, she thinks it was stupid too. Her daughters told her she's nuts. But yeah, crazy heroic too.

Are we sure the (V) was from Vendetta? It reminded me of the V for Victory from the miniseries, like he thought the school employers were aliens.

If you are ever in a situation where you need to take out a guy like this, there are very effective weapons available to us just about everywhere; they're called fire extinguishers! Sneak up behind, just like that woman did... say HEY!!! When he wheels around, blast him in the face with dry-chem! As soon as he starts screaming from the blinding chemical fog, brain him withe the extinguisher bottle...more than heavy enough to cause a concussion! Dial 911...problem solved!

wait, he was firing blanks? did anybody get hurt? how did he kill himself?