To: longnshort who wrote (1056260 ) 2/21/2018 7:04:10 PM From: Heywood40 Respond to of 1585832 In 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 15 people and wounded 23 more at Columbine High School. The destruction occurred despite the fact that there was an armed security officer at the school and another one nearby — exactly what LaPierre argued on Friday was the answer to stopping “a bad guy with a gun.” Deputy Neil Gardner was a 15-year veteran of the Jefferson County, Colo., Sheriff’s Office assigned as the uniformed officer at Columbine. According to an account compiled by the police department, Gardner fired on Harris but was unsuccessful in stopping him : Gardner, seeing Harris working with his gun, leaned over the top of the car and fired four shots. He was 60 yards from the gunman. Harris spun hard to the right and Gardner momentarily thought he had hit him. Seconds later, Harris began shooting again at the deputy. After the exchange of gunfire, Harris ran back into the building. Gardner was able to get on the police radio and called for assistance from other Sheriff’s units. “Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me.” The second officer was Deputy Paul Smoker, a motorcycle patrolman who was near the school writing a speeding ticket. When he heard a dispatch of a woman injured at the high school, he responded. He, too, fired at Harris but didn’t stop him. LaPierre said having armed security on the scene is necessary so someone is there to shoot back. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said. “Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away — or a minute away?” But in chaotic situations, it’s often impossible to identify the “bad guy,” as Smoker said in his account of Columbine: “There was an unknown inside a school. We didn’t know who the ‘bad guy’ was but we soon realized the sophistication of their weapons. These were big bombs. Big guns. We didn’t have a clue who ‘they’ were.” “That’s the point,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) at a press conference on Friday afternoon, denouncing LaPierre’s solution. “There were two armed law enforcement officers at that campus, and you see what happened. Fifteen dead ... 23 wounded.”