A Conscious Decision to Make an Oregon School a Mass Murderer Safe Space

 As usual Dr. Lott is on top of this. His discussion of this tragedy links to a 5/31/2022 Oregon Public Radio article:

Oregon lawmakers last year gave every public school district in Oregon the option to ban guns from their premises.

So far, most districts have declined to take them up on the offer.

Since a change to Oregon law in September, just 13% of the state’s public school districts have opted to close an exemption that allows holders of a concealed handgun license, or CHL, to carry weapons onto public property where possessing a gun would otherwise be a felony.

According to an OPB analysis, that list includes some districts in the Portland metro area — though not yet Portland Public Schools — along with far more rural school systems. Among the 25 that have banned guns are districts in Klamath Falls, Myrtle Point, Tillamook, Pendleton, Tigard-Tualatin, Lake Oswego and Woodburn.

The vast majority of the state’s 197 public school districts have, to date, taken no such action...

Backers of policies banning guns in schools acknowledge it’s a small step. Board members in three districts OPB spoke with said they could not point to an incident where a CHL holder or their weapon had caused an issue on school grounds.

“It just allowed us to complete the commitment that we already had in place of having gun-free schools,” said Melissa Barnes Dholakia, chair of the Bend-La Pine school board. The board passed a ban in December, receiving just two comments on the policy, both of them supportive.

So why would districts disarm their teachers and staff?

For some students, the possibility that lawful guns could cause trouble on campus was a primary driver of their support for a ban.

When the Hillsboro school board enacted the policy in January, a high school student named Ceph Tronco was among those voicing support.

“What I’ve been thinking about as I’ve been hearing about this policy isn’t, ‘Is someone going to be in place to stop an attempted school shooting?’” Tronco said. “It is: ‘Is someone going to have brought a gun into a school grounds that accidentally discharges? Or is somebody going to have the potential to get into a charged argument that escalates because of the presence of a firearm?’”

The bottom line, Tronco said: “We do not want people to be bringing firearms onto our campuses.”

And that worked out so well in Bend. Adults should be making policy not kids, whose knowledge of the world is necessarily incomplete.

I Blogged A Couple Days Ago About How Burning a Koran Excuses a Muslim Stabbing Someone

10/2/25 BBC:

Two Jewish people have died in a car ramming and stabbing attack at a synagogue in Manchester.

The attack came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar, and is being treated by police as a terror incident.

Police say they know the identity of the attacker, who was shot dead by armed officers at the scene.

Four people remain in hospital with serious injuries. Here is what we know so far about the attack.

A nation so focused on keeping its Muslim population peaceful should not find this surprising.  I am so glad Britain does not have those icky guns available to commit mass murder.

10/2/25 Sky News:

Police have named the attacker believed to be behind today's terror attack at a synagogue as 35-year-old Jihad al Shamie. Police say three people are also in custody, while Sir Keir Starmer has promised to do all he can to protect Jewish communities. Follow the latest below.

Obviously MAGA.  What else could he be when his first name is Jihad?  A little later in the day they reported that three others have been arrested for conspiracy to terrorism.

UPDATE: Great comment at Instapundit: "Giving someone called "Jihad" citizenship in 2025 is like naturalising someone in 1943 called Hitler von Auschwitz."

Remember: Banning Guns Makes Them Go Away

1/15/24 BBC News:

Converted handguns - originally designed to fire blanks - are currently responsible for more shooting incidents in the UK than "real" handguns.

Police figures reveal there were 64 discharges from converted models in 2023, compared with 42 from real equivalent weapons.

Converted handguns were responsible for four deaths and 17 serious injuries.

A government ballistics expert says the issue is "a top-line threat priority".

The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) - which provided the provisional figures in response to a Freedom of Information request from BBC's File On 4 - says there were also seven incidents in 2023 in which a converted sub-machine gun was fired.


Blank firing guns are produced for a number of reasons - such as for use in theatre or film, as starting pistols, or at firearms' demonstration events.

Instead of firing bullets, they use cartridges filled with gunpowder, which make a gun-like noise and a spark.

"The issue is that they look like the real thing," says Gregg Taylor, who is forensic technical lead at the National Ballistics Intelligence Service (Nabis), which analyses firearms discharges for all 45 UK police forces.

"Sometimes they even include genuine parts from genuine weapons," he adds. "Therefore you've got 90% of what you already need to then go on - and do the extra 10% to convert."

The Boulder Mass Murder

They wanted an AR-15 mass murder. They got it. 3/23/21 Daily Beast:

Authorities on Tuesday identified the suspect in the shooting deaths of 10 people at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, as 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, whose brother said he was deeply disturbed.

Alissa, who is from Arvada, has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder for the massacre. He was taken into custody after being shot during apprehension.

Ali Aliwi Alissa, the suspect’s 34-year-old brother, told The Daily Beast that authorities searched his house all night after the shooting.

Alissa described his brother as “very anti-social” and paranoid, adding that, in high school, he would describe “being chased, someone is behind him, someone is looking for him.”

“When he was having lunch with my sister in a restaurant, he said, ‘People are in the parking lot, they are looking for me.’ She went out, and there was no one. We didn’t know what was going on in his head,” Alissa said, admitting that he believes his brother is mentally ill.

Boulder's AW and LCM ban were blocked ten days ago by the courts.  3/23/21 New York Post:

Ten days before a gunman killed 10 people at a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket, a judge blocked the city from enforcing a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines — likely setting up a renewed gun control debate in the state.

Unless he bought in the last ten days, that action is irrelevant. 

Yes, he is a Muslim, and reputed to be an ISIS sympathizer, but mental illness is the most plausible explanation for this crime; sympathy for torturers like ISIS is more likely a symptom than cause.