courtesy dailymail.co.uk and Facebook
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Who saw this one coming?

The father of the alleged Santa Fe High School shooter, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, told a news outlet in Greece that his son was a victim of bullying, according to the Associated Press. “Something must have happened now, this last week,” Antonios Pagourtzis said.

Yes, something clearly happened.

‘My son, to me, is not a criminal, he’s a victim. The kid didn’t own guns, I owned guns,’ he said

Unfortunately Mr. Pagourtzis chose to store his guns in a closet where his son and his siblings had easy access. That’s how his son was able to grab a shotgun and a .38 revolver and go on a murder spree at Santa Fe High School last week, killing ten and injuring ten more.

Pagourtzis said his son never displayed any signs that he would be capable of such violence, explaining that he didn’t fight with others, didn’t drink alcohol and seemed to enjoy healthy pursuits such as working out.

‘He pulled the trigger but he is not this person,’ he said.

There was obviously much more going on in his son’s life that Mr. Pagourtzis is aware of. Or wants to admit.

‘It is like we see in the movies when someone gets into his body and does things that are not done. It’s not possible in one day for the child to have changed so much.’

On that last point, Pagourtzis probably won’t get many arguments. Whatever it was that prompted his son to murder his classmates and teachers isn’t something that “just happened.” It must have been brewing for months, if not longer.

‘I have guns, I am a hunter and had a farm which I rented in the 1980s,’ he said. ‘The guns in my house are legal and declared.

All well and good. If only they had been safely stored.

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143 COMMENTS

  1. Where have I heard this before? Now I remember. Flip Wilson back in the 1980’s “The devil made me do it.”

  2. Nobody is at fault. Except the gun. And the NRA. All others are victims.

    A neighbor killed her husband a couple of streets over. I saw the chopper doing circles above the site. Does that make me a victim? Who do I sue?

    • Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re not going to be able to sue as a “victim” for the murder a few blocks down.

      On the other hand you aren’t dead from a shooting a few blocks down in someone else’s house so you are now a “survivor” like Hogg.

      To make money, team up with Gonzalez and ask Bloomberg for a grant to go on a public speaking tour denouncing the NRA.

      I’m sorry if the emotional pain and trauma has scarred you too badly to go in public. In that case, apply for disability.

      • I like the disability angle. Nanashi is already drawing a check for denouncing the NRA.

      • Hoogg is white male student. You are no one in todays Usa if you are not a victim.

        He has been told all his life by his teachers and the media he is the oppressor and responsible for 10,000 years of oppression. If he did not 100% agree and opened his mouth in protest to the logic of that, he was committing micro-aggression.

        He’s finally found a way to be a victim.

        Two years a woman down the block from me was knifed to death by a guy who got out of his previous arrest on a warrant problem. I am special, I am now a ‘fourth amendment violence survivor” and am a proud possessor of my victim card. This enables me to excuse any failing of mine and lash out, starting with the dead white males who enshrined this silly warrant requirement.

        • Please refrain from the term “male” when speaking of the ass-clown Hogg. The more accurate term would be DICK followed by a first or last name.

    • There has been a few shootings outside of my house. Looking out my window I could see the bodies. Of course my area is a gun free zone. The little family owned store decided to close down for good and escape the state.

      The last murder I “saw” happened when a shooter in a car was chasing another man in a car while shooting at the fleeing car causing it to crash into a family’s wall/fence. I heard the distinct shots of a muffled handgun, the squealing tires, then the loud boom of a car smashing into a wall. I hit the ground because I knew it was a gun going off. The person next to me didn’t get down because they thought it was “fireworks.” Not sure I still have the pictures I took right after the car crashed…

      Recently we ran into the mother of the victim. She told us he didn’t make it after all and what the motive could have been. See when it happened the initial story from the crime scene was that he “lost” control of the car and crashed into the wall; they said he will be fine as they loaded him into the ambulance.

      Does that make me a victim of gun violence? Is that enough for me to have “just cause” to carry a gun now?

  3. Antonios Pagourtzis seems to be an expert in the art of denial. First, he denies ever seeing any signs that his son might ever become a mass murderer. Now, he denies that his son is a culpable mass murderer. I’m usually inclined to cut a bit of slack for someone who is suffering from such a severe blow as Mr. P. has suffered, but I’m having more than a little trouble in his case.

  4. I had my own shotgun when I was 13. Kept it in my room. My friends all had shotguns too. We never considered shooting anything other than birds. Times have changed.

    • Me, too. And a .22, both of which I learned to shoot by the time I was 8 or so. It was a time when rural kids took their guns to school with them so they could go bird hunting after school. It’s now a lot easier to demonize guns and gun-owners than it is to ask hard questions about just why we persist in insisting that our schools remain essentially undefended when it’s all too obvious that they are handy targets for spree-killers. Insisting that schools remain undefended is a fool’s errand. Politicians and and school admins ought to know better.

      • Santa Fe High was defended. Two SROs responded to the shooting.

        I realize you are likely speaking in more general terms.

        • Only two armed SRO’s for hundreds of students. For all practical purposes the school was undefended. I am in no way belittling the fine response of the SRO’s. But realistically, they were assigned an impossible task.

        • I heard one cop was shot before the kids were. So there was only one cop to respond.

          The story is very messing right now. It’s always hard to find out the truth when it benefits the government to lie or hide stuff.

        • So how many SRO’s are we going to assign to each school.? What are we gonna do, surround each school with a division?

        • Back shooting works on damn near everyone. Pretty sure we’ve had more than a few active duty SF guys IN A WAR ZONE get zapped by some guy in the right uniform. A school resource officer? It would take a better man than me to even stay awake through what must be an absolutely soul crushingly boring job. I have no doubt some kid could walk right up to me and shoot me in the head before I even noticed he was there.

        • I live in one or the neighboring towns to Santa Fe. That high school has about 1400 students. Kind of hard for 2 SRO’s to “defend” so many.

      • news flash

        when you were a kid, they did not have

        the internet
        tweets
        snapchat
        facebook
        e-mail
        ect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        the bullying does not stop now just because you went home or its the weekend….unless you toss your phone and all the electronic junk that EVEN schools require you have now!

        • Also the schools do nothing about bullying. My daughter had a guy bullying her in high school and they would do nothing about it. I told my daughter the next time this creep comes up to you, kick him in the nuts knock hell out of him and call me. She did it. I made my trip to the school and told them she followed my orders and if this happened again that I would handle it. No more trouble.

      • Liberal Social Engineering projects that have been designed to alter society. Undermine Religion, The Family, The Community, and Commonsense…Like a bad Psy-Ops program out of the 1960’s MK Ultra..The “Left-Wing Political organizations ” that operate and control our public schools have done a fine job at rewriting history, “so-called revisioned Social Studies–with a political slant…Even The way we used to do math thanks to “Common Core..” And let’s not forgot that the Liberals have turn our schoolsl into cesspools of all sorts of “Jerry Springer like social dramas” laced in sex, drugs 💉, gender bending, ridiculously complicated relationship dramas that lead into violence–something kids shouldn’t be engaged in , social media uncensored for kids, and complete off the wall craziness! The kids should be receiving the same kind of quality educations the Obama’s and The Bush kids received…Because THEIR thriving, and have opportunity…What about OUR kids, What are they getting…?

        • I get the impression Progressives are basing their ideology of that of the Khmere Rouge with the destruction of the family unit as a core tenet. The state, or “anka” (The Organization), would provide everything to everyone. The return to Year Zero cost the country more than a third of the national population at the time.

          I put Progressive gender fluidity theory to my son. He thought it was the most stupid thing he ever heard, once he stopped laughing.

        • It’s really all about ideology. My brother and his wife are super leftwing. She’s a doctor of English. He’s also a college professor (literature). They have 2 teenagers. The 19 y/o girl came out as gay. The younger boy is……weird. Probably gay or “gender fluid”. I’m a 3%er, 2A absolutist and very conservative. My daughter is socially well adjusted. Shes freakishly focused (she studied law AND chemistry at Harvard last summer for a semester at age 16). She’s preparing to apply to the Ivy’s as we speak.

    • What you didn’t have was a class full of kids that each had their own pocket sized super computer capable of enabling each and every child to do amazing things, like research the history of the world, or terrible things like watching gang rape porn. Cell phones and the internet also enable kids to stalk and harass other kids like never before. Shit that goes beyond the hazing or bullying of the old days. America has had a gun culture since it began. What is new is the culture of the hand held internet. I never got validation from a machine growing up. If someone’s parent were negligent usually the community picked up the slack. If a kid got bullied at school it wasn’t nearly as persistent to the point it followed them home, tucked them into bed and greeted them when they woke up the next morning. Watching TV in the old days was an escape from the day to day. By contrast, the internet and social media of today has woven itself into the very fabric of our existence. Cell phones are shiny and slick, not intimidating at all on the surface. But whether they are used to facilitate the trafficking of slaves or used to for detonating IED’s, they can certainly be as devestating as any gun. I’m not all the way against liscenses for firearms and enhanced training requirements, maybe even some first aid certification to go with it. I do think the entirety of the whole needs to be taken into account though. Guns kill people, guns save lives, but they don’t slowly drive a person insane. People drive people insane. Cell phones are the weapon of choice in that war. Cell phones and the internet and all that go with that are also way bigger business than privately owned firearms and thus the big corporations that profit from their sales have at least as much lobbying power as the NRA or firearms manufacturers. Maybe the effects all of that is having on our culture, particularly our children, is what we need to be looking at at least as hard as the issue of legally owned firearms.

      • To at least some extent, I have to agree with your assessment. As a 60-something with no kids, my reaction to this bullying stuff has mostly been, “Suck it up, kid – it’s a mean world.” After all, I was small for my age and kind of a brainiac/nerdy type (debate team, school paper) and didn’t do sports. So I got my share of relatively good natured hazing, and learned to cope.

        What I didn’t have, and didn’t really consider until recently, was how insidious and immersive technology-enhanced bullying can be. If you want to combat that stuff, maybe schools ought to be “smartphone-free zones” as well. Luddite as it may be, one might ask themselves how much do smart phones actually enhance the educational experience, and how much do they detract?

        • In my opinion, smart phones (and social media and the like) are MUCH more of a detraction and negative influence on human civilization than they are positive. MUCH worse. There really is no positive that outweighs the negatives; and I’m in my 30s, so I’m not some old geezer saying this.

  5. I wonder when this “I’m a victim!” phase will end in our country. Accountability and responsibility are words/attitudes that are becoming outdated and so ‘pre-21st century’.

    • It won’t end so long as it keeps being factored in to everything. Nothing is anyone’s fault anymore. No one fails, they’re victimized by a system they can’t point to, only generalize.

      It’s disgusting. There’s plenty of people that take accountability for their own actions and shortcomings, but they’re usually too busy living their lives while the “victims” sing to the rooftops.

    • Contrived victimhood is the end result of criminal mental gymnastics. Nobody is the “badguy” in their own life story (think “Falling Down” with Michael Douglas…. “When did I become the badguy?”). Victimhood and “rage against their oppressors” allows them to emotionally justify their behavior. Otherwise they would be crippled by guilt and self loathing.

      As long as you have people who hate someone else for something, you will have “victimhood”.

      • I love that movie – trying to figure out when to stop rooting for Defens, and when to figure he’s crossed the line. Hence my forum handle, which I’ve had for years.

  6. Another case of no mandatory federal safe storage laws with severe penalties for non-compliance. In many foreign countries a metal safe is mandatory or you do not get a firearms certificate to even buy a gun and there are surprise inspections to keep people from ignoring the law. The result is they don’t have 1,300 kids getting shot in the home accidentally every year or kids taking their parents guns for mass killings as happens in the U.S. of Hay. Nor can criminals walk into a persons house and just scoop up his guns and leave in a couple of minutes. Our lack of civilized gun regulations are pure insanity and we pay the horrific price for this with rivers of blood flowing and bodies piling up in the morgues.

    The charge of bullying also seems to be true as well as a televised interview with another student claimed even the Coaches were making fun of him along with the usual student bullying.

    • I call a great steaming pile of bovine manure.

      He should be charged as an accessory to the crime along with reckless endangerment.

      And as for mandatory storage laws, yes I have those. And inspections. In 20 years I’ve been inspected twice. Once at my old residence and once at my new residence. For the second they made an appointment several weeks in advance.

      The police simply have more important things to do.

    • “…Another case of no mandatory federal safe storage laws with severe penalties for non-compliance.”

      Yawn.

      Seat belts are also mandatory but there is no federal mandate for them to be worn.

    • Severe penalties for murder don’t seem to phase the bad guys. Nor for rape.

      You admitted the problem a few days ago, comrade cisco.

      You said the US is a socialist nation. Socialism, communism, fascism. All equal evils and they breed evil.

      • And the version of collectivist authoritarianism pushed in the West is particularly pernicious in some ways. I’m not sure it played a role in the Santa Fe case, but the 3rd wave feminist dogma of treating boys like defective girls, resorting to medication if needed, is probably contributing to the problem. You also see these kids who snap come disproportionately from homes without fathers, another factor encouraged by modern Western leftism. But these things are working as intended as far as leftists are concerned, so we can only expect them to double down on making things worse. I suspect an excuse to advance civilian disarmament is merely a side benefit.

    • “Another case of no mandatory federal safe storage laws with severe penalties for non-compliance.”

      Well, he’s lost his son, too. He will get divorced. He’s a business owner who will be sued into personal and business bankruptcy oblivion. He has a younger daughter whose circle of friends will vanish and who will spend her days depressed and afraid. His own friends and family will stop returning calls.

      On top of all that, he will be charged with negligently making firearms available to a minor. That’s a Class A misdemeanor in Texas, good for a $4,000 fine and a year in jail. Then there are all the pleasant experiences he can expect in jail.

      Ultimately, he’ll probably commit suicide to escape the torment.

      Soooo…….you were saying something about severe penalties? Facing all of this, what law would you recommend to have prevented his negligence?

      • Sorry Johnathan but your skull is very dense. A-typical for a Conservative that does not want to face Historical truth which I spelled out for you in plain English in my above post but you have proved your reading comprehension is non-existent.

        • We’ve been over this before, comrade cisco. You have no legit education to speak of. Indoctrination, yes. Education no. You argue like an angry 13yo which means you’re in your early 20’s. A product of our public school system.

          Sucks to be stupid. But there it is. You’re stupid.

        • Lanza cut through a $1,800 safe in 15 mintues.

          And studies in Maryland and NJ show of those 1,300 child deaths, well over 90% are criminals, usually active criminals, with illegal guns domiciled in the home with children.

          An additional 2,800 kids are killed in homes with criminals by non gun means.

          If you were serious you would be promoting laws forbidding persons with criminal records from being domiciled n homes with kids.

    • That’s complete nonsense.

      In Austria you only need a safe for category B weapons (handguns and semi-auto rifles.) For C and D (bolt action, smooth bore shotguns, hunting rifles, that sort of thing) a normal lockable door is enough. You also don’t get a certificate. You get a permit for B weapons. For C and D none such thing is needed.

      A safe is not required to get a so called Waffenbesitzkarte, aka the permit.

      It’s similar in Switzerland and Germany, Czech Republic, too, Hungary as well.

      You are right. Criminals in Europe don’t just snatch a gun from a home. They don’t have to. Nowadays they break in and torture and threaten the homeowners for information. They’re not even after guns. They don’t need them. The black market in Europe is flooded with millions of firearms, and the criminals know there is very little risk to be shot by a homeowner, so they tend to not get armed like that.

      Civilized gun regulation? Please, you have no clue how bad this “civilized” gun regulation is in Europe.

      The EU wants to disarm the people. They’ve tried it not long ago. The European gun lobby made the mistake of compromising with the EU. The result is the recent firearms directive which is a pile of crap.

      Plus, European “civilized” gun regulations make it hard for law abiding citizens to defend themselves with a firearm. It’s usually a surefire way to end in prison (excessive force), because the industry to protect criminals in Europe is far ahead of the one in the US. The poor criminal will be catered to by NGOs and activists, while his victim gets shafted.

      What you call “civilized” I, as European, call oppressive. It doesn’t protect anyone. It’s just more bureaucracy to harass law abiding citizens with.

      • Sory El Bearsidente but as I pointed out and as you totally ignored was the fact that child accidental shootings, children taking parents guns and committing mass murder and theft that is so easy a 6 year old could pull it off is way less in many Foreign counties that have instituted the safe storage and thorough vetting laws that the U.S. does not have.

        • Over 90% of child access to guns resulting in death or injury are guns owned by criminals domiciled in the home. those criminals are not affected by gun safe storage laws, which is why adoption of those laws has been shown NOT to decrease incidents one iota.

    • Yeah, the safe storage worked so well for Nancy Lanza. Adam Lanza could not get his guns in a million years.

      • To Indiana,

        Your not familiar with what happened at all as his mother did have safe storage but did not use it like it was meant to be used. She knew how dangerous and depraved her kid was but she even let him keep his own safe in his own bedroom and there were many other guns not even locked up at all including ammo..

        • Yet he still murdered his mother to steal the keys to the safe, a acquire more arms, and commit a massacre. It’s almost as if “safe storage” didn’t matter…

        • Cisco, did you just admit that all the laws in the world can’t force someone to properly abide by them? Did you just blow an enormous hole in your (for God sake learn the difference between your and you’re so you can at least seem intelligent enough for an adult conversation) argument?

          You’re (see the difference) admitting that laws don’t magically force people to follow them. Lanza’s mother might have been compelled to buy a safe and install it by law, but no law can force her to keep it locked all the time to prevent unauthorized access. Such safe storage laws are usually written with a provision that the police have to set up a time with the homeowner to inspect so as to not waste the officers time driving to a home to inspect only to find the homeowner away. So one isn’t compelled to properly lock up all firearms until right before the agreed upon inspection time.

          It makes these types of laws worthless.

        • Lanza’s was produced by Michael Moores columbine, he was fascinated by the fame Moore created of those killers and the sympathetic portray of them as victims.

          And nancy lanza had a California compliant (the most stringent state testing and certification) gun safe.

      • To Krogfecespie

        Quote————————Commie go home.————————quote

        Go back to Nazi Germany

        • So people like me can kick it in the nuts again? Why would you want me to raze your home a second time?

      • To Angry off his rocker

        quote—————————-You should totally GTFO and move to those super safe foreign countries then……————————-quote

        Get used to it we Socialists will be making big changes after the election. So leave now while you still can.

        • So why wait. You can to Venezuela and enjoy the benefits of a socialist utopia. I hear the health effects are such the average Venezuelan now weighs 25 pounds less than they did a few years ago.

      • cisco is on record as saying the EU countries, like france, have strict immigration laws. He can’t qualify. Which is odd cause a redneck trump voter like myself can go any time I have the urge.

    • Well you’re apart of the problem, Crisco. If all guns were required to be .45, the rounds would simply bounce off everyone harmlessly, right? It’s your dreaded ultra powerful meteor killing 9mm that’s killing everyone crisco!!!!!

      • To RKI

        Quote———————Those surprise inspections reek of 4th amendment violations.—————————————–quote

        Your rights have never come from the Constitution rather they come from the Supreme Court which votes according to Public Opinion. Even a brief study of these charlatans will teach anyone the basics on how the government really works. Past rulings and their explanations have repeatedly stated no Constitutional Right is absolute and was never meant to be. Just as you can get into serious legal trouble slandering a person, yelling fire in a theater or telling law enforcement your not going to obey the latest gun ban law will land you in jail and the Supreme Court will naturally refuse to hear your appeal. Again History has proven it over and over again.

        MY favorite and very truthful apply to the people who worship the Constitution is this: The Constitution is so worthless its much better use would be just to wipe your ass with it.

        • Taking a break from raping your neighbor’s 6 year old boy, huh?? I’m sure he’s happy you arent molesting him for a while… Does his father know you are sodomizing him?

        • Find another civil right you hate, communist scum? Good to see that you are at least being honest about your utter disdain for the Constitution.

        • @ciscokid
          you are absolutely correct, our rights don’t come from the constitution, rather they predate and supersede the constitution and all other American law.

          the constitution is merely an acknowledgement of those rights
          the constitution is a covenant that the people of these United States adhere to to promote a peaceful and prosperous society.
          Socialism will degrade into either oppressive genocidal government or oppressive genocidal anarchists.

        • I’ve had two Greeks work for me. One was the grand kid (well he was about 20 years older than me) of immigrants, so really a Greek-American who ancestors came in the 1920’s. That guy was responsible, amazingly self reliant and an epitome of personal responsibility. He had a work ethic that was the most positive in our whole company. I trusted him fully with my business whenever I traveled.

          The second guy was a recent immigrant from Greece. i thought he would be similar. He was the exact opposite. He grew up all though the socialist period there, and everything he ever did wrong was someone else’s fault. He could not take responsibility for anything. had him and his Greek born wife over a few times for dinner or barbeques and she was the same and a complete insane conspiracy theorist at that.. That country, today at least, after all that socialism since the late 70’s, breeds in externalization of all blame for anything and everything. No person is at fault for anything.

          These are people who belong in the ultimate nanny state: Australia.

    • OMG! It is Crisco Kid. Why do you spend your time pushing your Liberal Fascist ideology on this site? You do realize it is a waste of time. Most of the people on this site have sworn to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. Many of us were around when the USSR tried to push tyranny across the world. A lot of us heard the stories from our fathers who fought fascism during WWII. What makes you think we are going to let you or anyone infect our country with your regurgitated flavor of tyranny? Question- are you some teenager in your parents basement playing with proverbial matches? If so, here is a word of advice kid: What people do today will be judged by history, and history tends to strongly disfavor advocates of tyranny. Step away from the keyboard, learn a little true history, and ask yourself do you really want the dystopian future you are advocating today.

  7. .. and if they were stored properly..

    He would have driven a truck through the crowds gathered out side, killing twice as many people..

    Or maybe he would have made damn sure his explosives worked.. and killed even more!

    If you ever wonder how much evil can exist in a man’s heart.. go re-read, “Lord of the Flies”….

    We are living in an age of complete ignorance and unreason.

    May God have mercy on us…

  8. If Mr. Pagourtzis can convince the mother of the girl who his son shot in the face at point blank with a 12 g shotgun (rendering her unrecognizable) that his son is a victim, then I will buy it. Until then, STFU.

  9. “…his son was a victim of bullying.”

    #MeToo!!

    Now what?

    After VA Tech and the whole “he was bullied” schtick, I was discussing this with my brother-in-law. (He can say _anything_ with a straight face.) I relating my school experiences with being bullied. His response: “you’re overdue”. Too funny.

    Well, somehow I survived being bullied and beaten up without stealing one of my Dad’s guns and shooting the bullies. Maybe I’ll look them up. j/k

    • I held a grudge for a very long time at my school tormentors but never even dreamed about shooting anybody.

      • I have found in life, the best response to certain people is from an old Ojibwa saying.

        “If you sit by the river long enough, eventually you will see the bodies of your enemies float by.”

        It means that sometimes, you don’t need to take action against certain people. Certain people cause so many problems, that’s its only a matter of time before they come across someone that doesn’t take their shit, and they die or end up in prison. Or, like my horrible ex wife, who contracted AIDS and a crack addiction, and literally died in a ditch.

    • Same here. I was teased, bullied, but I overcame it. I don’t exactly know how, but I know I had many plans of revenge, but nothing involved killing them. Well, a few plans did include delicious demises for my tormentors, but I never actually put them on paper, mainly because I didn’t have the necessary materials. Like a volcano, a laser, a moat full of crocodiles, and teleportation technology.

    • I was mercilessly bullied in my junior school which is ironic because many of the bullies were good friends in my senior years.

  10. While generally I am of the opinion that guns should be locked up — if at the minimum to prevent an easy theft — sometimes it’s not so cut and dry. What I mean by that is I know plenty of families that keep their guns locked up in a safe, but equally they allow their teens to have access to the safe. There are several legitimate reasons for this, the most obvious being that the parents trust their teens to be mature enough to understand and respect the guns, but also in case there is any catostrophic event (ie, a home invasion) where the parents aren’t home but the teen is. In this story, judging from what the father is saying, even if he had a safe, he might have legitimately at the time also let his son know the codes to that safe.

    Now, of course if it’s the case that the parents know their children have responsibility and rage issues, then yeah, it would be totally irresponsible for them to let the kids have easy access to the guns.

    Anyways, just sayin’, even if he did keep the guns locked up… it still might have gone south. Sometimes you can’t predict the evil within people.

    • I wonder if a part of the issue is that people these days want a degree of prediction and prevention nowadays that isn’t always even possible?

      • True.

        There is likely nothing in your home that your teenager cannot put his hands on if he really wants to. Still, as gun owners, we should be responsibly storing firearms. Even if you don’t have children in your home, you need to consider the possibility of theft. No storage method is foolproof but if the guns had been securely stored, at least the father would not have to deal with that particular guilt.

    • I would trust my son with the keys to the safe, but I would never trust his slightly older cousin (by two years).

      • Seeing how things are trending, people under 21 will be considered minors although they can vote and join the government.

        • Funny how that works. Push up the effective age of minority, like age 26 is still a minor for Obamacare purposes, presumably to keep people perpetually dependent.

          Other examples, like raising the long arms buying age to 21, end up robbing people of their rights.

  11. The criminal sociopath perp a victim? We have heard this since the 1960’s when the corrupt dictatorial
    Earl Warren Supreme Court sided with the criminal element against the victim. Also, when then Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), worst president in American history, signed the damnable odious 1968 Federal Gun Control Act into punitive legislation targeting innocent American gun owners. This political deceit, class warfare, and socialist subversion against our republic has continued unabated now for 50 years. As Isaiah 5:20 states: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.”

    James A. “Jim” Farmer
    Merrrill, Oregon (Klamath County)

    • Hey now, FDR takes offense at you taking his “Worst President” title away! At least Johnson didn’t give away chunks of the free world to the Communists for literally nothing.

      • Klamath Falls Herald and News: Tuesday, September 27th, 2016
        Letters To The Editor

        Trump description would fit LBJ well

        In her Sept. 20th letter Sandy Couch describes Donald Trump as “narcissistic and egotistical.” That is an accurate description of Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) , perhaps the worst president in American history.

        Unfortunately, an issue doesn’t disappear simply because it’s been ignored, censored, covered up and concealed for decades.

        Also, the legacy of deceit, abuse of power, and political corruption that continues to curse America today! Case in point: “American Experience, “LBJ: Beautiful Texas/My Fellow Americans. A profile of Lyndon B. Johnson.” This recently aired on KSYS Channel 8.1 Aug. 15 and 16, respectively.

        Consider the following the itemized links below:

        Barr McClellan’s 2003 book: “Blood, Money, and Power: How LBJ Killed JFK”. Also posted at YouTube.

        J. Evett Haley’s 1964 book: “A Texan Looks At Lyndon: A Study In Illegitimate Power.” “How Persecution of American Christians Really Began in The US!” via the Constitution Party of Oregon (www.constitutionpartyoregon.net) posted under “Liberty In The News.”

        Trump to Pastors: ‘Christians Have Been Silenced Like a Child” via Pat Robertson’s 700 club confronts the 1954 Johnson Amendment which remains blatant censorship.

        “Lyndon Johnson Murdered John F. Kennedy” at YouTube. The oppressive 1968 Gun Control Act LBJ signed into federal legislation and its Nazi/ racist roots long since exposed by JPFO, Inc. at http://www.jpfo.org.

        Finally, the Vietnam War (1961-1975) How LBJ and then Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara greatly escalated this “no win war” in Southeast Asia. And at a cost of 58,000 American lives. Lyndon B. Johnson likewise paved the way for Carter, Clinton, and Obama.And while Richard M. Nixon was no saint, he wasn’t even in the ballpark with Lyndon when it came to the above political atrocities, abuses, and crimes against the American people.

        James A. Farmer, Ashland
        Now a resident of Merrill, Oregon (Klamath County)
        Native Oregonian since November 1956

      • Yes it’s true. FDR did indeed have Communist Party sympathizers in his administration.
        That cannot be denied. And of course there is much more on FDR too. Nonetheless I
        remember Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) and his political atrocities and abuses in my
        lifetime! Along with both the Earl Warren and Warren Burger Supreme Courts, Ted
        Kennedy, Thomas Dodd (D): then U.S Senator from Connecticut who framed the
        1968 Federal Gun Control Act into oppressive national legislation and which punitively
        targeted innocent American gun owners, these career criminal politicians and their
        treasonous socialist ilk did my generation much lasting harm!

      • Lyndon Baines Johnson (Democrat)

        L.B.J. was an F.D.R. on steroids. He took American socialism to heights Roosevelt could have only dreamed of. Johnson’s “Great Society” permanently ensconced a welfare society into the fabric of America, which has resulted in the destruction of both our economic system and the family unit–especially in the black community.

        Before Johnson’s “Great Society,” black families were largely intact and out-of-wedlock births were an exception to the rule. Not anymore! Now, over 70% of births in the black community are out of wedlock. For all intents and purposes, Johnson’s “Great Society” replaced black husbands and fathers with Uncle Sam and took away the black man’s self-respect and dignity. No wonder today’s black males comprise such a large percentage of the prison population.

        Lyndon Johnson is also responsible for the Gun Control Act of 1968, which is the grandfather of ALL of our modern gun control laws. As a U.S. Senator from Texas, Johnson is also the man that successfully gagged and muzzled America’s pastors and churches with the passage of his amendment to the 501c3 section of the Internal Revenue Code in 1954. Of course, Johnson also took America into the unconstitutional war in Vietnam. And I personally believe that L.B.J. was a conspirator to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Lyndon Johnson was a terrible President and an awful man.

        Source: Chuck Baldwin: The Ten Worst American Presidents
        Submitted courtesy of James A. Farmer, Ashland

  12. So he left his guns in a closet, unattended and unlocked, in a house with kids, one of whom he apparently knew was being bullied at school?

    Maybe they can get a prison cell together.

  13. Fuck your son. Everybody has bad shit happen to them, and they deserve sympathy based on how they respond to it. Someone who decides to murder a bunch of people over being (maybe) ‘ bullied’ deserves NONE.

    Too bad it’s obvious that nobody raised him right, since his father makes excuses instead of taking any responsibility for knowing what was going on in his son’s life.

  14. Fame can make people do all kinds of things. However, the people who merely seek popularity want to live that famous life rather than die in infamy. Those with grievances want to punish the offenders in notorious fashion and send a message that lives on after their death. In this case you could say, “terrorists are not born, they are made.”

    These shooters are actually quite relatable… Many kids are sympathetic to their plight. They can spot the kids who are more likely to commit suicide or murder. It’s not a surprise to many of them that a school shooting occurred, why it happened and who did it. Yet parents are shocked and confused; even the shooters’ parents are confounded.

    As a parent you have to ask yourself: if children can see the situation and adults are oblivious to it, who is the problem? Where does the problem reside? Is it really an object?

  15. Federally mandatory storage laws? No thanks, I will pass. Where and how I keep my firearms is my business. Not everyone lives in a place where home burglary is a common thing. Probably because we live in a place where you will most likely be seen and delt with on the spot and nobody else will know about it unless you tell them. Not everyone has children running around. People do live in places where rapid access to multiple firearms may be needed at moment’s notice. My house, my castle, my rules. Federal, State, and or local government has no authority here.

  16. He will be once the pos is released into the adult prison system. On the bright side for him his dates will be mandatory, no chance of rejection.

  17. Why is he talking to a news outlet in Greece? Does he not live here? Where was he when his kid was getting into his stuff? I wasn’t aware that Texas required declaration of firearms.

  18. he said. ‘The guns in my house are legal and declared.

    Why does he have to declare his guns? To whom? By which law?

  19. Okay… So your kid was bullied and he never got into a fight?

    When I was in school someone physically bullied me. He used to shove me, hit me and laugh about it. I wasn’t a weak person rather I was a very nice kid. So I used my words first. I asked him to stop touching me. I told him I am not his friend nor do I want to be. I made it clear I don’t like what he was doing and I am warning him it’s not a good idea for him to mess with me. I gave him many chances because I was kind and I didn’t want to physically hurt him. I didn’t get adults involved because I wasn’t afraid of him, I wasn’t weak and I didn’t want him to get into trouble with the system for something that isn’t that bad. However, one day during an assembly he smacked the back of my head as he sat behind me. If he thinks he can hit me when a bunch of teachers are around… I knew in that moment I had to stop being nice to him regardless of the outcome and finally stop giving him a pass. I turned around and started punching his laughing face: first one dead center on the bridge of the nose, the rest I don’t remember. I might have told him something harsh after I was done to stop him from contemplating retaliation, but the rage made everything after the first punch disappear (along with my bully).

    If your kid is getting bullied verbally or physically and he/she isn’t getting into fights, they are likely suppressing/hiding everything. They will live in stress, become depressed, neurotic and destructive.

    With the existence of the internet bullying can follow them even after trying to escape it to another school. If no one is bullying them at school doesn’t mean they are not getting bullied online.

    You have be involved in many aspects of your kid’s life and have a relationship that allows them to talk about everything with you instead of hiding it for whatever reason. Once they hit puberty things become very confusing, intense and complicated for them. You have to get more involved/closer with them. Just because their older doesn’t mean you no longer have to be as much of a parent.

  20. The father is trying to get in front of this because he knows he’s civilly liable and maybe even criminally. A world of shit awaits him

  21. Before the kid became a monster — which he became when he decided to kill a bunch of his peers — he was a victim of a system that hates boys and produces psychopaths by the truckload.

    There’s a huge difference of degree between Pagourtzis and Hogg, but there’s no difference in kind. They’re both scum from the same scum factory.

  22. Yeah, the shooter was a victim: he was a victim of having inattentive parents that did care enough about his metal state. Which is something that might have prevented this entire thing before the kid snapped.

    To remind everyone the kid that shot up Sandy Hook got his guns by killing his mom and taking her guns to school.

  23. Anyone else notice in the provided picture the shooter is at least three years younger than when he murdered ten people. No doubt some lawyer suggested the Trayvon maneuver to try to dredge up some sympathy for the murderous weasel. Every last minute of the rest of his life in jail is good enough, but only barely.

  24. “safely stored” is the buzz-word meaning ‘impossible to utilize in any fashion in a hurry even if needed desperately’ and ‘too big a PITA to be worth bothering owning’.

    “Safety” is what some assholes will use to shackle your right wrist to your left ankle before they duck-walk you into a shallow grave. All while promising you “safety” that is absolutely impossible for them to provide you, even if it were their earnest intention.

  25. I… Really am not sure what to do. I was bullied, I wanted revenge, but everything still worked out for me. Somewhat… Anyway, I never actually tried to bring a weapon to school. I mean, anything can be a weapon, if you’re desperate enough, but I guess nothing became that desperate. I knew I could always count on my family to support me, but also to correct me if I was in the wrong. I made friends with my teachers. Maybe I even became a teacher’s pet to a few. I was a kind, yet awkward kid, who got bullied by a few douchebags, and I did get into some trouble, but only because I had access to electronics. If someone smelled burning wires, it was likely me. I guess I had hobbies, electronics and drawing. Then again, I also didn’t have a life online. My first phone came when I was in high school, and it was a Kyocera 2325. It was a good phone, but only a phone. Not even any games on it, just a monocolor display and a full keypad.

    Maybe we lost something when we gained the internet. We lost our ability to leave things behind. We can’t leave bullies at school, we can’t leave our daily lives in our backpack and have our family life at home. We have to know what Becky thinks about Chad, what a total tool Cody is, we have to share our opinions with our friends, and these friends are perfect strangers!

    I am the last of my kind. When I grew up, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, we talked openly to people and recorded our thoughts in a diary, not in tweets or posts. If I wanted to watch a movie, I had a VCR for that. The internet was for news and research, nothing more. There was no Wikipedia, just encyclopedias. Games were based on the individual, only a select few were able to network on a LAN. If you wanted multiple friends to play, you plugged in a separate controller and could play against three others.

    For what it’s worth, we just have too many opinions, too many ads, too much information, everything colliding, fighting for our attention, and we have to keep track of everything and everyone to the extent that we have to decide what to and what not to care about. Even then, we have so many things screaming for us to pay attention to other things, other places, other people, many of which will never interact with us or meet us, but they say or look cool at the time, so we like them or dislike them, which is done with little thought because we have to delegate our very thought space…

    I think I’m going to play Mario on my N64 now.

  26. I have said this ti family kids and friends kids when I see them going overboard with the bully shit

    Keep it up and if they go nuts on you? You might suddenly you find yourself looking down the wrong end of a gun barrel…you can only blame yourself…then say hi to God for us…

    • This. No reasonable person would say that the killer is anything but scum, but people all too often forget the more general truth that cruelty can be repaid.

  27. Well buddy, you can take that line ” my son’s a victim, and he was a really good kid, until something musta happened”, to court, I still think your kids fucked….. Copycat , hang them murders by the neck until dead on the court house lawn at high noon, copycat that

  28. I think a good idea for an anti-bullying PSA would be to show a kid with several bullet holes including one in the head who looks like he’s been dead for a few days come up and say ‘I used to be a bully. Then one day I showed up to school and there was this kid I used to pick on and he was holding a rifle. That’s the last thing I remember. I guess you never know which kid will turn out to be the crazy one.’ Then he turns around and walks away revealing a massive exit wound in the back of his head.

    Kind of like the films they showed us back in drivers ed.

    The dad’s just working his way through the denial phase of grief. The media should have the good taste to let him do that off camera.

  29. Safe storage law? The average “gun safe” under about $3000 is a decoration, a tool to keep honest men honest, and something that can be defeated in just a few minutes with battery-operated tools. Having your guns in a gilt-covered box doesn’t keep anyone “safe”.

    • True, except for Sturdy safe. Thick steel (for gun safes – 3/16″ body and 5/16″ thick doors), great bolt work, for about $1,800 and up. For a few hundred dollars more you can nearly double the steel thickness and get stainless steel plating for additional drill protection. I always recommend Sturdy Safe at a minimum, or, a tall B-rated burglary safe (1/2″ thick solid steel doors with good bolt work). C-rated burglary safe would be darn near impenetrable for most common burglars (1″ thick solid steel door and 1/2″ thick steel bodies). If you can afford it, a TL-15 rated safe would be even better, with TL-30 rated safe being amazingly difficult or impossible to get into for any common thief.

  30. I’m waiting for the report to come out that states that the son was taking a psychotropic drug for whatever condition he was afflicted with.

  31. Does not Texas have laws that hold adults responsible if a minor gets into their firearms? I know Florida has laws to that order. Whatever the verdict on the shooter, the father shares in it for his irresponsibility.

  32. Since the girl he had the hots for wouldn’t hook up, he “was bullied”.
    So take a couple of guns to school and show her by shooting her. Maybe a dozen roses in front of all her friends would have worked?

  33. Wouldn’t surprise me if bullying and being school-wide socially ostracized is what seeded this. Rejection (probably public) was the straw that broke the camels back and the kid decided he would end it. The problems were probably a long time running and should have been addressed long before it turned into a “teach them all a lesson” situation.

    Males usually hide their grievances, so unless you are paying strict attention to your kid’s expressions when you mention school or related subjects, you aren’t going to notice anything is wrong.

    Before some holier-than-thou tries to preach to me from a horse, calling attention to what likely started this shit storm is in no way defending the murderers actions.

  34. And how lucky for Dad that he had a few bullies at hand to blame for his son’s, on dad’s account, foray into self-help justice. The glaring lack of empathy on daddy’s part for the kids murdered by his son, the imbecile embrace of the bizarre morality of bullying a capital crime that requires no judgment or jury to act on, and his view of himself and his son as victims true victims. In fact, we got a glimpse into the kid’s moral education from his daddy in the aftermath of its outcome. Then, too, I am not happy this squalid moralizer had guns in his house. I also find it hard to resist mentioning that kids with this one’s reported outlook are not rich in friends and defenders. All that said, as some prepare to seek the kid’s head, I’d urge caution. It is easier to approve of capital punishment when the criminal is not somebody you love or care about. Justice is a virtue but so is mercy

  35. what do you expect??? his son just committed mass murder of children. ANYONE would have trouble coping. oh yeah but not the total bad-asses of TTAG who know EXACTLY what they would do in EVERY situation no matter the circumstances. ABSOLUTE BAD ASSES!! talk about keyboard commando’s. this site seems to be a haven for you guys.

  36. While The 17 year old shooter is soley responsible for his actions, we as a society need to deal with school and social media bullying as equally dire public health concerns which are inextricably linked to the epidemic of school shootings, student suicides, and deaths from drug overdoses.

    Our public schools have ceased to be places of learning. They have become indoctrination centers. This too needs to change, and fast!

  37. We stored our firearms on gun racks on bedroom walls. Mr. Zimmerman you sound to me like one of the liberals that make me gag. If the little scumbag wanted to cause harm he would have gotten to those evil weapons that we should hide away like I used to pornography when I was this piece of shits age. It is not the boom sticks it’s the maggots that we were not allowed to crack their ass anymore and worry about their feelings.

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