Similarities... A 1979 School Shooter - Brenda Spencer

[Still Sensible]

Seems to be some similarity... from a rare event by a female shooter....

(CNN) - “I don’t like Mondays.” This was the answer given by one of America’s first contemporary mass school shooters, Brenda Spencer, when asked why she had fired 30 rounds with a semiautomatic rifle at a San Diego elementary schoolyard on January 29, 1979.

She killed the school’s principal and custodian and wounded nine schoolchildren, some as young as 8.

So unfathomable was the event at the time that this action even inspired a popular song.

But today, Spencer has been nearly lost to our collective memory.

Full article worth the read: http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/21/opinion-female-mass-shooter-can-teach-us-about-adam-lanza/?hpt=hp_t2

[Jackpine Radical]

1. OK, I'm waiting for Lizzie Borden to show up around here.

How have the NRA goons missed this one?

Not only a female murderer, but did it with an axe.



Isn't that comforting?

[Still Sensible]

2. No. Here was a young person that

that was in a similar situation. Her parents were divorced and one was obviously a gun nut. Who gives their kids a semi-auto rifle for Christmas? It is logical to assume that there is at least some similarity in circumstance. It doesn't make any difference that she happened to be female.

From Wikipedia:

On January 29, 1979, Spencer put herself by a window in her home and began randomly shooting at Grover Cleveland Elementary School across the street. She opened fire as children were waiting outside for principal Burton Wragg to open the gate.[3] The shooting claimed the lives of Wragg and Mike Suchar, and injured eight students and a police officer. Wragg was killed while trying to help the children, and Suchar was killed while trying to pull Wragg to safety.[3]

After firing thirty rounds, Spencer barricaded herself inside her home for almost seven hours, warning police that she was going to "come out shooting."[3] Ultimately, she surrendered to police.[3] Although police officers found beer and whiskey bottles cluttered around the house, they stated that Spencer did not appear to be intoxicated.[3]

When asked why she committed the gun attack, Spencer replied, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day. I have to go now. I shot a pig [policeman]. I think and I want to shoot more. I'm having too much fun [to surrender]."[3][5] She also said, "I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun," "It was just like shooting ducks in a pond," and, "[The children] looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings." At the time of the shootings, Spencer was 16 years old.[1]

[HereSince1628]

3. I think the National Cutlery Association may have out gooned them.

You can have this Emeril blade over my dead pork cutlet!

[cascadiance]

4. I started an earlier DU thread on this and a new DU member who knew her in HS responded...

It must be rough on her to see these sort of things happening all over again after she probably went through that too personally back then when she was younger.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022004164

[Chorophyll]

5. I remember her very well, and the song too.

The fact that we didn't take decisive action on gun control THEN proves we're a nation of fools.

ETA: And then John Lennon got shot. And then Ronald Reagan got shot. And then and then and then... nothing. Or next to nothing, anyway.