Episode 43 - The Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

0:15 Welcome everybody to the second episode for the week of two crime besties. Yay. How are you getting two of us? I know 2 episodes in a week. This is to make up for the fact that we missed a couple of weeks unintentionally, so bonus for everyone. You know what? It's a bonus for me. I could spend the time with you. That's. It right back at ya, right back at you. We're actually after we finish recording today, where are we going? We're going away on a weekend for the girls. Yay girls. Weekend away our lovely friends Marissa, Caitlin and Haley and shout out yes massive shout out to them.

0:51 I am excited for a nice weekend. Few drinks, few oysters and not for you and we're going to have a great time that's. Going to be so good yeah no, it's just yay and the weather's looking not too bad like it's. Cold like it's the The season has definitely shifted. The season's shifted. Yeah, but it's it's, you know, beach with a nice coat like. Yeah. It's, you know, like it's not. Freezing. It's going to be sunny, but cool, yeah. I think I'm drinking myself. I think that's, I think, I think anywhere there's wine drinking with.

1:25 But yeah, we'll go with it. We'll go with it. Totally happy for some sunshine, yeah? You can have your oysters. Yep, you can have your bread and butter or whatever come, whatever comes with it. I don't know. I'm not a jail. I'm just trying to think like what else comes out at like that's the first thing that came to my head. What would you order instead? Oh, maybe some olives or something. Oh yeah, OK. Like yeah, Oh yeah, maybe some bread. I. Wasn't that far off then. So what else goes to the champagne?

2:01 Am I going to be made to eat an oyster? Oh, you should try 1. I don't. Know if I can do it? You've never tried one before? No, I've no snotball. They're not though, aren't they? Like certainly look it, do you actually chew them or do you just swallow? You kind of. No, no, I think I chew them. I actually don't know what I do. I think I do. Yeah. No, I think I chew them. OK. I think I'm just trying to think now. At Christmas time, we went over to my in laws for lunch one one of the days and my father in law's like, oh, I went to wherever some market, some seafood market and I bought everyone oysters and I was like bloody beauty.

2:43 Like this is fantastic. Anyway, he literally bought us a dozen oysters each a. Dozen each, each a dozen. A dozen. That's a lot. It was a lot of oysters. And then also by the end of that, because they're quite. Rich Yeah, right. So by the end of that, I was like, I actually don't feel like eating like the really nice rest of the meal that he'd prepared because he's an amazing cool. Oh wow, that's what. Peter gets it. Is it? Yeah. OK, yeah, yeah, Frank's a Frank's a really good cook, but yeah, I then I was like, oh, now I don't know that I'm gonna be able to enjoy the other delicious.

3:15 Department, sorry. Credit where credit's due, I suppose. No, No. Good. Brisket. Do you wanna hear a funny story actually about the brisket? Oh, so you know my 40th is coming up. I know we've mentioned this so many times, but I will be mentioned. Again. Yeah. I was really undecided about what to do. So tossing up what, where do I go? What do I do anyway? Lots of different reasons, but I'm like, you know what? I'm actually gonna have it at home. The the venues that I was looking at were either not available when I wanted them to be because my birthday's in the middle of winter.

3:48 So like some of the places don't hold functions over winter like the warehousey type places. Stuff, Yeah. And then the place that I wanted to have it had an absolute cap of 50. You couldn't have more than 50 people. And I was like, well, even my bare minimum guest list is more than 50. Yeah. So I'm like, oh, what do I do? Anyway, decided to have it home. I was talking to my girlfriend Michelle, about it and just telling her, you know, this is what I've decided to do. And she's like, oh, that sounds absolutely fantastic.

4:18 Can't wait. Just make make sure Peter doesn't get in his head that he's going to be cooking a brisket for it. And I was like, oh, there is absolutely no way he is cooking a brisket because like, Can you imagine? Like I want this to be a nice affair and I don't want a big hunk of meat and also the mess that goes with it. Don't even get me started on that because. Sort of situation as much as like the meat can be really great, but it's yeah. It's it's an ordeal. It's not and it's it's a mess and that's not the vibe I'm going for.

4:45 I'm not going for brisket. So it's giving brisket. So anyway, I didn't even tell Peter about this conversation with Michelle, just sort of got on with it. Anyway, we were lying in bed the other night, and he's like, oh, I actually had a bit of an idea about your birthday. And I was like, oh, yeah. And just before that, I'd said to him, I want to buy a ninja slushy and make frozen margaritas. And he was like, absolutely. And he was like, yeah, yeah, great idea. Cool. And then he's like, I've had this great idea.

5:13 I'm like, oh, what is it? And I thought it'd be along the lines of, like, I don't know, another cocktail we can have or something like that. He's like, I'm thinking, hear me out here, God, I'm gonna make a brief and I'm like, no, you're not. That's a hard no for me. I'm like, I don't really think you're getting the vibe of what I'm going. For yeah. So yeah. Love. Love that he wanted to, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate the, you know, the want to go to effort, but I'm sure there'll be a million other things I can make him do.

5:50 On the day there will be a list and mom's length long for Peter to do prior because you shouldn't be doing. Anything. No, that's right. No, no, absolutely. Don't see it. Yeah. So anyway, that's where we're. At love him. Before we get started today, I do have a shout out for Laura Evanes, I think is her surname. She sent us a really lovely message, damned us a really lovely message. And yeah, just very complimentary. And she'd only just discovered the podcast and she reckoned she was almost up to date.

6:17 Wow. I'm guessing you're here today on Thursday when we've released this. Yeah, you'd want. Oh, I love that let. Us know if you are actually. Yes, yeah, that would be great. Oh God, I love that. Yeah. But that's the thing. I think because we had the two weeks off, so many people have caught up. Yeah. Which, you know, sorry, but you know, that's. It's so cool. Like, 'cause the numbers that have been ticking over of, you know, previous episodes have been absolutely solid lately. So everyone is going back and watching and listening and say watching and listening because people are watching Gross who are watching how it's really scary.

6:47 I know we do the video thing, but it's really just sort of like. It's a secondary. I mean, yeah, look, primarily podcasting is an audio meeting. Yeah, thank God. Yes, we definitely have faces for radio. Oh for sure, for sure. Some days more so than others. The fact that we pull out some makeup every time we do this, that's. Right, really annoying. I, I look back on our first videos where we thought, oh, there's no one gonna be watching. We don't even put makeup on or anything. Now we're like, oh, at least we need to slap something on the Facebook when we get going.

7:12 We need to Start learning how to do contouring and. I need to do like a makeup tutorial or something. I'm down for it. I've never really learned how to do my makeup. I have to say. Yeah, never been into that. So yeah, I just do like YouTube tutorials or actually TikTok or whatever. Yeah, same days. And I'm like, oh, that's how you make your eyes look nice. But I still I'm still not that good at it. I suck at yeah, I think it's patience thing. I don't have the patience for and. Also like these women who take men, people who wear makeup who take like literally an hour to put on your makeup.

7:44 Mine takes me like maybe 3 minutes. Oh yeah, whack it on. Like you whack it. On I did mine before, like yeah. Just Oh no, I thought, I actually thought you took your time compared to what I do. I was really brick girl. Oh, shoveling my brick. I look. Like, I know what I'm doing, yeah. You really did. No, I got the illusion. No, it's all illusion. Anyway, so second episode of our three-part school shooting series. Today we are going to be talking about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which took place on the 14th of December in 2012 in Sandy Hook which is in Connecticut in the US.

8:24 This is the deadliest school shooting of an elementary school in the US to this day. Ranch #2 two overall overall, the one ahead of it, which was actually 1. I don't know really well, it's it's not. I was like, quite shocked to see I actually have to pull up the name of it because I can't remember it off the top of my heads. Blacksburg, VA. Which, yeah. I mean, I remember hearing about it, but I don't, I don't know it in the depth that I know the three that we're discussing over this series. Absolutely.

8:50 Maybe that's something we can look into at some point. Yeah, it's, it caught my attention that that was one that wasn't really on my radar. But yeah, that this is number 2 just, and it's an elementary school to boot, is just awful. It's horrific. So as opposed to the Columbine school shooting, this school shooting was actually perpetrated by a single perpetrator by the name of Adam Lanza. Yeah, he shot and killed 2020 of the victims were children between 6:00 and seven years old. Like honestly, honestly.

9:20 And the other six were adult staff members so and his mother so. Yeah, as I said, the total death toll was 28. Putting himself. And his mom, yeah. So at the school it was 26, but prior to getting himself down to Sandy Hook and we still don't really know why he chose Sandy Hook Elementary. It wasn't the school that he attended. Lots of rumour at the time that his mum had worked there, that all these sorts of things, but there was, they found no connection really. Aside from the proximity of where he was living at the time.

9:52 Yes, yeah. So I feel like, you know, we were talking in the Columbine episode about these copycat type murders. Maybe he, I don't know, got a. Copycat to him like what he wore, for example, as we spoke about in the previous episode, he wore all black, you know, and things like world black coat. So, yeah, there was some copycat esque elements. Yeah, to this, yeah. So maybe that's all it was. That's what I'm saying. It's not like, yeah, there was another reason. Believe the school was only a 5 minute drive from his house so it just may have been a convenience thing of I think it was the closest school.

10:27 Yeah. Cuz there was certainly mental health issues here that really drove this. So yeah, not, not a, a revenge thing like what was sort of put on the Columbine one of, you know, that we're targeting certain people and those that sort of issue. It was literally just that's the closest one, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So suffered or not suffered, he had Asperger's syndrome and he suffered from depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. So they were for all formally diagnosed prior to the perpetration of this, of these murders.

10:59 Do you want to get into talking about his mom? Yeah, just really quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. So she knew obviously about all of these diagnosis. I think she wasn't all that much of a present parent and she certainly wasn't, you know, the type of parent that knew what a kid was doing day-to-day and, you know, was really all that involved in his life. She owned the firearm that he used to perpetrate these murders and all of the ammunition that went along with it. She. Was a gun enthusiast, was what?

11:31 Yep, was the words. Used for her and by the sounds of it wasn't something that she had a lot of respect for because it's not like she kept her guns, you know, securely locked up to the point where her how old was he? He was 20 to the point where her 20 year old son couldn't access them. I mean, I know access. He had full access, but not the licenses to go with it. So I know, you know, there are people who own guns and they have them locked away in a safe. Their significant other probably doesn't even know the combination to that safe because that's the safest way to own and keep a gun, even though I completely disagree with that.

12:08 Oh, that's a completely personal thing for me. But yeah, I just don't think guns belong in anyone's house or anything like that. Controversial. Probably if we've got some US listeners, but that's the way. I feel the purposes for guns. To me, if you live in a farm, you might have a purpose for that, absolutely. And I do understand people use them recreationally in terms of like, but that's why. You've got gun clubs where you can get guns. Things like that, yeah. I, I don't feel comfortable with the thought of actually having guns kept in a house.

12:36 No, particularly with children. Yeah, I just, but even even with a 20 year old who's got mental health issues like that to me is a recipe for disaster. Well, not in every. City there was a report written by the office of the Child Advocate who stated literally that that his severe and deteriorating mental internalized mental health because he wasn't really being treated for it no he. Wasn't and that's that's part of the. Issue so combined with the atypical preoccupation with violence and the access to deadly weapons proved to be a recipe for mass murder.

13:10 Yeah, like that's that was in their report. That's what they wrote of him, but. This is the thing, like I know you can't kill a person with a gun if you don't have a gun. And to me, this situation was not, it wasn't just like, oh, we didn't understand. He had these issues. He was treated by psychologists. And it was recommended that extensive support be put in place for this man. Boy, you know, so by a man. Yeah. So Yale Child Study Center was where he was treated originally with an antidepressant drugs.

13:43 He was also given, he was actually given medication at a time where at one point where he took it for three days, didn't like it. So stop taking it. There was practically no intervention from that point onwards. And his mum just chose to not do these things that were being reckoned highly recommended. And this was. Before just. This was before he turned 18. Yeah. It's not like, you know, he was a child at this time. Not his mother did not enforce or she never followed through with anything or followed up on anything.

14:11 Now, I know it's, it's easy to blame the parents in these situations and I'm, you know, there's obviously a lot of nuance in all of this. But as a parent of a child who's got these significant issues going on, and I'm not talking about some generalized anxiety and depression. This was severe depression that he was experiencing and he did not. He was showing signs that would have been incredibly concerning. She didn't do anything about it. No, in fact, she had guns in her home. Like what the hell?

14:41 So the recommendations from this Yale Child Study Centre, Yeah, were for extensive special education supports, ongoing expert consultation and rigorous therapeutic supports that would have been, should have been embedded into his daily life. Wow. So we're not talking just, you know, it needs a couple of sessions of therapy here and there like this. It was identified very much so that this was is an issue and that was all largely gone unheated. None of this was taken up. So the impact of that is huge of what that's creative for other people.

15:12 His own mother did say that he didn't come from his come out of his room for three months straight. He lived in her basement. And so she describes him as having no feelings or no no emotions. Now we spoke you're saying he had was diagnosed with Asperger's and depression, anxiety as well as OCD. Now there is no connection with having an Asperger is not a disorder anymore anyway. No, that's. Right, it's not even. Diagnosing but so autism is what he had yeah so but not that is not the cause of what happened so there there was these other issues that were going on for him as well that we we talked about it as well with the other with Eric as well Eric Harris you know that there were other mental health issues not autism the there is no link between someone going doing mass shooting to be honest completely the opposite is what autistic people generally are like that's.

15:59 That compliant and rule abiding all of those. Things absolutely, but that his mother apparently just they, they the only way she was allowed to communicate with him was via e-mail. She wasn't. And they lived in the same house, apparently. Like because this was just, this was not long before Christmas, this occurred. She gave him a card a few days before the shooting and in the the card, it was a Christmas card. It was, it was, it was a check and it was a message saying Merry Christmas and encouraging him to go and buy himself a nice new gun.

16:28 What on earth? A man, a boy, whichever at 20, he's both to me is living in your home and not even coming out to socialize in any way, shape or form for three months. He doesn't get guns. Let's turn the kindergarten. Just that does my head in. Well, it did. It did her head. In because. Yes, turns out on that morning before 9:30 AM, he shot and killed her while she was still in bed. She was in her pajamas and he shot her four times in the head. Awful, awful. He then popped in her car and drove to Santee Hook Elementary just going back.

17:08 Slightly on that, sorry, no, just because the only motive that they can sort of link with this and in respect to his mother is that she was talking about wanting to move. So because of like his situation, she was thinking that maybe they're moving to a different place would be good for him. So she had potentially discussed this with him or mentioned it. But the thing was he would not move out of this. The area he was in the basement, he was not, he didn't want anyone in his bedroom. And there's a reason for that that comes up later.

17:35 So no one had been in there and he was not prepared to let, you know, people come in and view the house for her to be able to then sell it. So her idea of that was that she was talking about buying him an RV so that she could move him into that and he could stay in that whilst she showed the house to, you know, pack it up and move and everything and sell it. What the hell? Even that, even that is absolutely even that is so fucked up. Absolutely. Sorry. I just, yeah. No, no, that's actually really good for context because it gives you an idea of like she was obviously pandering to his every whim instead of actually getting him the fucking treatment he needed.

18:11 And at the end of the day, you know, pandering to his every whim, all that got you was a was a shotgun to the head. Like, it's not as if this he was that mentally disturbed that he wasn't going, you know? Oh, my mom's my one person that's looking out for me. He was like, fuck you. You want to move me? No, I'm not moving. Yeah. I'll show you. Oh yeah, heartbreaking as mother. Not long after 935 and he had his mum's, one of his mum's rifles with him. At the time, he had 10 magazines with 30 rounds each, so he had 300 bullets ready to go.

18:45 Yeah, he shot his way through a glass panel next to the schools locked front entrance doors. So I. Just had an upgrade of all these facilities of like before, like this is where I was saying like from 1999 from, you know, coming from Columbine, there were learnings that had Turks, Hagenplies, unfortunately not ones where like, you know, maybe gun laws, I don't know, haven't been sorry. You know that that schools had all implemented or not all schools, but a lot of schools had implemented all these safety measures and security measures.

19:14 They had like a system of like it was all locked doors. You had to be visually seen on a camera to be let into the building. That's not going to stop. A gun? Well, no. He just shot through. It he just, he just shot through it. I mean, after this happened, there were further measures again where a lot of schools then introduced metal detectors and that kind of thing for students coming through. But again, if you're if you've got a gun, you're going to be able to get into a building like there's, there's, it's like if you want to rob a house, you'll find a way in putting.

19:42 A Band-Aid on a situation. You know, it's not going to fix the problem. I understand it might somewhat reduce risk, maybe in some ways. But if every school in America has got metal detectors and security guards, OK. But a gun's a gun at the end of the day, and a gun can penetrate all of those things. Yeah. So what the fuck are you actually doing? Get rid of your guns. Sorry. Sorry. I know. I know. I can't believe that that's even potentially A controversial thing to say. I. Wouldn't this is it? Absolutely.

20:13 So he's shot in, gone through the the side panel of the door and the principal and the school psychologist. So the principal's name was Dawn Hosh Sprung. Oh, God. I don't know how to say that name properly. I'm sorry. Dawn and Mary Sherlock were meeting with other faculty members and they actually heard, and you can see this on CCTV, they actually heard something. And you can tell they were kind of startled by the noise, but no, what? They didn't panic. So in that immediate instance, it's not like they were like, fuck, there's a shooter in school.

20:46 But it took them a beat to kind of go, oh, my God, That's that's they're gunshots. They're gunshots. So in this moment, my goodness, there were some heroes in this story. Yeah. One of them was a janitor who was he was in the hallways, in the hallway. And he obviously recognized what was going on here. I think he actually even saw Adam Lanza with a gun. Yes. He's then gone to all the classrooms down the hallway going active shooter, active shooter and alerted everyone and. Unfortunately, they do have, you know, practice of these incidents and so there are things that they do this.

21:22 School had done an active shooter drill two weeks prior. A couple of the classrooms still had the blackout window Shields on their classroom windows. Like they're so. Yeah, what I'm so their doors. The doors are going to the classrooms that have the window on them. Yes. Two of the classrooms had black paper covering it from their active shooter drill two weeks ago. Yes. That actually saved an entire classroom worth of students Yeah. So what this particular a teacher did, they had a bathroom in their classroom.

21:51 Yes, she got her. I think it was something like 26 students into a bathroom, She said. I've heard her interviewed and she said I don't even know how we fit. I could not today. I could not fit 26 people into there. I had to. So we just did it, She said. There were kids on top of other kids. It was a tiny little bathroom. So but her doing that saved their life because not only did she still have the blackout paper on her window, there was no one in that classroom in that classroom. So he's like opening the door.

22:20 There was no one there. Yes. And that, you know, she's telling the kids those. Children, quiet, quiet and just be sorry. That's gonna really get me. Yeah, you can't even imagine. She is an absolute hero. And it's because of the janitor who alerted her to that fact, because she says in when I, in that interview I heard with her, she says that she he didn't know anything was going on, but they had no idea. No, they didn't hear the gunshots. And this all happened so extremely quickly. This was like 40 seconds or something after he ended the building.

22:48 His rampage went for 5 minutes. That's. Only 5 minutes, which doesn't sound like long, but. I bet it felt like. My fucking last time it would have, but at the same time, in 5 minutes, he, I mean, well, he killed a lot of people in a very short space of time, which is just horrific. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. So yeah, in the 5 minutes of his attack, so between 9:35 and 9:40, he shot. So there were a number, as you say, like a number of stories of very heroic people. Yeah. The teachers in these classrooms.

23:22 There was one particular classroom where a teacher was found, and she was laying on top of another student who she was obviously protecting. But unfortunately, that little child also passed away. Another teacher was found and she had stepped in front of her entire class and where So she had died, but also had six children behind her. But there were children who lived through that. One particular one who I think there was why she was on her own. She was the only one that survived from that group.

23:48 She acted and played dead and that's what saved her. You know, I heard an interview with her dad, her dad is a police officer or an ex police officer and they practiced at home that that was what she should do if this ever happened. And she said to him, when she got out of that, out of there, I think her, the husband and wife were together. The mom and dad were together. And this little girl came out and said, mom, I did what you told what dad told me to do. I played dead, but all of my friends are actually dead.

24:16 Oh my God, She's six years old. Six. Years old. There was six and seven. All the children that were killed were six and seven years old. Just is horrific. This this one again, I, I was like pretty much the same age as the teachers that were murdered and I was teaching a grade 1-2 class at this time. So it just, it really hit me this one hard. I, I can and The thing is that what came out of this one afterwards was a lot of talk around that teachers should be given guns for fuck's sake. And I thought, are you freaking for real?

24:49 We currently as teachers. I have a rant here. You know, you put on various hats in a day, you're a nurse, you're a psychologist, you're everything to these kids. And now you also want us to be gun holding. Like that's just not what you go into teaching to do. You protect your children And look, you know, by these what these teachers did, they put their bodies in front of these children and they would protect them with their lives 100%. But why on earth would teachers need guns in their classrooms?

25:18 Their guns need to be removed elsewhere, not put more guns in. What on earth? I can guarantee you that I, so I would fairly confidently say that majority of teachers in Australia, in America, all over the world are not people who like guns. I think I could be fairly, that would be a fairly easy thing to prove that these people are not, you know, pro gun who teach and there's a reason for that. I'll just put that out there. There's no way teachers would walk out before they would. But you've, you've got this situation where you like, OK, these people are dying at the hands of these guns and the people on the other end of them.

26:01 The solution to that isn't to introduce more guns, although that seems to be the call every time something like this happens. The call is for more arms. There's no like, what? What the fuck? No, I can't even. Yeah, it seems so backwards to think about it that way around. I just don't understand. Yeah, no. At so at 9:40, as you say, so he's entered the building at 9:35, at 9:40 and three seconds, the final shot was heard by the police. They believed that it was Lanza shooting himself. He shot himself in the low rear portion of his head with a Glock.

26:38 And he was in a classroom at the time. So there were students who witnessed that, too, just to add to the fire. So they begun. Evacuating students at about 10:00 AM they entered the building realizing that yeah, that's the gunshots had had ceased and obviously with this one being in 2012, like mobile phones, etcetera, they had access to people in the building who could stay to them what was going on so there were a number of 911 calls that came through from inside the building explaining to people outside what was going on.

27:05 So I think that's a big help if you can get that access for the police officers on the outside to know what they're coming into a little bit more. So they were able to enter the building by 10 AM and evacuate all the students and secure the school. But again, you know, it's, it takes them a long time to still surveil the scene, you know, and work out what's gone on and find what you know, what was there? There was only, I think 2 that were injured in this one. Whereas I mean, so he when he shot, he shot and he.

27:32 He shot to kill. He shot to kill. Absolutely. So ultimately, as we said, 20 students were killed who were all aged 6 or 7, and then six teachers or another adults, personnel from the school that were were also killed in that 5 minutes. That's all it took him. It's just so heartbreaking. Oh. It's horrible. Should we go through the list of the victims? So obviously we had. First of all, the first victim was his mum, Nancy Lanza, who was shot at his home at age 52. We then have the school personnel.

28:07 We had Rachel Davino who was a behaviour therapist. She was 29 years old. Dawn Hochsprung, who was the principal at 47 years of age. Anne Marie Murphy, 52. She was a special education teacher and apparently an absolutely beautiful soul. Lauren Rousseau Rousseau Rousseau aged 30 A teacher. She was one of the Grade One teachers. Mary Sherlock, aged 56. She was the school psychologist. Victoria Soto, who's 27, who was also one of the grade one teachers in one of the classrooms, there was actually some stuff I actually did write about her.

28:46 I highlighted about her. Sorry. No, it was really important. So the special education teacher also that you spoke about, and Marie Murphy was involved. Yeah, sorry, Soto. Victoria Soto was the one found and covering and one of the children at the time. So she was protecting him, but unfortunately he passed away as well. So absolutely brave acts by those that were. Students who passed away, who were murdered. Charlotte Bacon, aged 6. Daniel Barden, aged 7. Olivia Engel, aged 6. Josephine Gay, aged 7.

29:18 Dylan Hockley, aged 6. Madeline Hsu, aged 6. Catherine Hubbard, aged 6. Chase Kowalski, aged 7. Jesse Lewis, aged 6. Anna Marquez Green, aged 6. James Mattioli, aged 6. Sorry, I've lost my page. Grace McDonnell, aged 7. Emil Parker, aged 6. Jack Pinto, aged 6. Noah Posner, aged 6. Carolyn Provetti, aged 6. Jessica Ricos aged 6, Aviel Rickman, aged 6, Benjamin Wheeler aged 6 and Alison Wyatt aged 6. And as you said, there were two wounded teachers, Natalie Hammond, who was aged 40, and Deborah Pizzani, but I'm not quite sure what her role was.

30:12 So in response to this, I've, I've found this quite interesting. I mean, obviously there's the immediate aftermath, the chaos. We talked about that in the in the Columbine massacre, the same thing happened. Reunification of parents with their students and with this with their children and all of that. You know that the scene would have been absolute chaos. There was hours in some cases before parents were reunified with their children. And then you've got to think about those parents who weren't reunified with their children and what their experience would be.

30:43 I find it absolutely sickening because there is a lot of on the Internet about this where people are, there's a lot of conspiracy theories and and. Absolute. Fucking horseshit. I'm not even gonna talk about it because it's it does not. It does my warrant. Every time one of these comes up, the conspiracy theorists jump in and want a piece of the action. It's disgusting. It's absolutely just. Occurred and there's victims who are you know should be. And parents who are grieving the death of the the absolutely horrific murders of their children.

31:15 Fuck off people, just fuck off. Absolutely. President Barack Obama at the time, he gave a televised address on the day of the shootings. And I'm just going to read you a couple of quotes from that day. We're going to have to come together and make meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of politics. He expressed enormous, simple sympathy for the families that were affected, obviously then sparked yet another gun debate in the US And the fact that Obama came out and said what he said was a massive deal at the time, but it didn't do anything.

31:50 But he then didn't follow it through. And I think the IRA in the NRA. NRA. Sorry. The IRA? Sorry, wrong. Wrong country. Wrong. The National Rifle Association in the US have so much political power and so much political pull and the fact that, you know, they, they talk about their Amendment rights in to, you know, carry firearms and whatnot. I'm gonna mention this just once. This applies to the three episodes that we're doing about this gun control, but about, about, yeah, specifically about gun control.

32:22 And I feel like I may have mentioned this in a previous episode, but please do yourselves A favour. Google John Oliver and his gun reform series. He interviews congressman in the US. He interviews Australian ex Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who actually was at the forefront of our gun reform in Australia. And not even that you know, we had one incident which was the that's I remember now talking about it in the Port Arthur massacre episode. We had one mass shooting, one mass shooting in Australia, and you should see the images of the 10s of thousands of guns that people voluntarily got rid of in the hopes of keeping Australia safe from another incident like that.

33:06 And that is exactly what's happened. What's happened? We don't have school shootings. Thank God we don't have school shootings in Australia, you know, in America already this year. Oh my gosh, I didn't write the thing down. I was literally reading it this morning though. But in America already there's been 10s of school shootings this year. It's crazy. We're in. May I was I was look watching a TikTok recently of a woman who's living in Sydney, but she's a American, right? And so her husbands work has brought them here to Australia.

33:33 They were only staying for 12 months at the time. And so in her little her eldest was preschool age, but they've ended up being under contracts being extended and they've been asked to stay. And she was like, then we look for schools. So she went to look for primary schools for her, her child. And she was like blown away by how she got there and was like, oh, I just walked into the school grounds like she, and it really like unsettled her because she was like, oh gosh, there's no protections. And her, she, her first reaction was this whole whole idea of like, Oh my God, but my child's not gonna be safe, right?

34:04 And so she was like went and did the thing. And then she as she was got into it, she realized that, but the other parents aren't worried about this. She, it wasn't actually, she hadn't realized that that wasn't something that in Australia we don't need to worry about. And so as she got more into it and a child started school for the beginning of the year, just this year, she has gone, she's flipped entirely in terms of I don't ever want to move back to America because she can send her kid to school without any concerns and without having to have those security measures in place.

34:36 And The thing is, she she finds it really hard to explain it to her friends back home. I bet like that. I mean. I'm sure they would all. Love to have that experience, yeah, but they can't actually. Reality standard. It's not the reality. Exactly. And so it's really, it was really interesting listening to her talk about it of that idea of like how incredible that is. Whereas that is our normal and the idea of what you guys go through in America of like honestly I would homeschool my children 100,000,000% in America if I had to be forced to be to live there.

35:03 There is absolutely no way I would send my children to school like it concerns me. I very much I fully agree with you I. Wouldn't live there for that reason. I wouldn't live there for as I. Say if I was forced to live there, which I have no desire to, no. But yeah, I would absolutely homeschool my children. I just couldn't. But as a parent like. That's a big call to like I, you know, for the, for those parents who can't homeschool their children because they're working full time in order to homeschool my children, I'm I. Know, I know I'm a teacher and like qualified, but yeah, no, no, I have so much value in the school system, yes, that even I wouldn't put my children in a school system that meant they were in danger like that.

35:40 Absolutely. That is what I'm trying to say. But yeah, no that and that is. Completely fair, I totally understand where you're coming from and I fully agree with you. But some people, people have no options. Absolutely there are. There would be parents sending their kids off to school every day in the US, terrified, terrified that something like this might happen. You know, vibrating level of. Of, you know, like anxiety in a day that's unhealthy, Yeah. Where? Because then to me. That's actually absolutely breeding more people who go out and do these kinds of shootings.

36:13 You know that level of anxiety in a person is not healthy, no. It's getting rid of the. Guns would solve so many issues. Yeah, I always remember too, like when I've been to it, when I was, I've travelled to America and like, I remember one day I was standing in like a random shop in, you know, buying something. And it actually had this thought of like I was in a queue lining up to get to the register. And when it's likely that more than one even person here has a gun in their handbag and the realization for that for me was so daunting like that even just can't even like that's.

36:46 I don't know how people live like that. I really don't I. Don't know whether it becomes normal Yeah, You know, I mean it must because how else do you live like that? I. You could. I don't even know. I don't know because we don't have that lived experience. We don't know what that's like, so I'm so. Happy for that. Yeah, same. Yeah, same. We could probably go on about this far, but we'll leave it there for now. Please join us again on Tuesday for the last in our series on the US school shootings.

37:15 We'll be discussing Uvalde, which was an absolute fuck up right from the get go. So we've got a lot to talk about there. Thank you everybody for joining us again today and keep us in check on the socials. Please message us. We love hearing from everybody. Well, absolutely. Thanks. Everyone and yeah like subscribe right on the you know, platform. It helps us out all the time and love the comments. So stay curious. Crime besties.