From Shannon Watts and MDA:
After being fitted for a bulletproof vest, firefighter Kurt Becker tweeted about the experience, which went viral:
"I’m a f’ng #FireFighter! When is enough, enough? I’ll be donating to @MomsDemand today!" https://t.co/OBmwmiiAtI
— Moms Demand Action (@MomsDemand) July 12, 2018
The article from the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch:
Sultan: Clayton firefighter takes a side in the gun control debate and goes viral
Kurt Becker, a Clayton firefighter and union leader, never expected to join a group of moms advocating for gun law reforms. But while he was getting fitted for new body armor designed to protect him from semiautomatic gun fire, he hit a turning point.
Today I got fitted for my personal bullet proof vest, equipped w ceramic plates to stop rifle rounds like an AR-15. Salesman assured me “These will stop everything but armor piercing bullets.” I’m a f’ng #FireFighter! When is enough, enough? I’ll be donating to @MomsDemand today!
— Kurt Becker (@becker_kurt) July 6, 2018
Becker said new safety guidelines require fire departments that respond to mass shootings to update their personal safety equipment. Firefighters wait until law enforcement have done a first wave sweep in an active shooting incident, Becker said. Then, first responders go in to find, treat and extract patients, he said. They still face a personal security threat.
“What we see daily is that those threats include rounds from high powered rifles,” Becker said. The standard soft-sided body armor won’t stop those rounds of fire. He commends his department for upgrading their equipment to include individually fitted armor with ceramic plates.
Sounds like a reasonable policy to me.
“That’s what struck me last week when I sent out that tweet,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years now … I’m a professional firefighter, and I am getting fitted for body armor because our society has gotten to a point where we have to protect people like me from legitimate military-level threats.”
Spare me hyperbole. First of all, it’s not “legitimate military-level threats.” Second, for the most part society has gotten safer. CNN lying about the number of mass shootings on a 24/7 hysterical news cycle has gotten infinitely worse. Lastly , the “I’m an X, I shouldn’t have to Y” is pretty stupid, especially when it comes to a job where you signed up to run towards the danger.
“It just struck me, ‘Wow, this is crazy,'” Becker said. He had started paying more attention to the issue when his daughter, who recently graduated from Webster Groves High School, participated in the national walk-out day for students protesting after a mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., claimed 17 lives.
“She was holding a sign that said, ‘Enough,'” Becker said. “That kind of resonated with me. When is enough enough?”
So he’s an idiot who was influenced by his daughter’s walkout.
Here is why this “come to Jesus” seems more driven by politics than anything else.
Firefighters tell Missouri lawmakers that they couldn’t fight Ferguson fires unprotected
As a result, firefighters abandoned their hoses and left buildings burning when gunfire and looting erupted that night in the aftermath of the grand jury’s decision that former police Officer Darren Wilson would not face criminal charges in the Aug. 9 shooting death of unarmed teen Michael Brown.
This also happened in Baltimore.
My sister worked as a Paramedic in DC and said that criminals would often shoot at the EMTs that showed up in response to gang shootings. Some gangs even target EMS.
None of these outrages were enough for Mr. Becker?
Of course not. The media was praising the rioters in Ferguson and Baltimore. Media personalities were doing “hands up don’t shoot” on prime time news shows. Black Lives Matter could do no wrong.
Yet rioters were targeting the very people trying to stop the city from burning down.
Now that Saint Louis is trying to outfit an active shooter rapid response team, it’s enough.
The media is not defending law abiding gun owners. The media is making the civilian sale of AR-15’s, gun makers, and Republicans the bad guys. Fact bereft kids are being cheered for cursing out the people who are not in any way logical way responsible for a mass shooting
This guy had enough only when it was politically advantageous for him to have had enough. When there was a real serious threat to his safety, he made no objections and they didn’t go viral.
But we law abiding gun owners are going to get beat over the head with this.
“Here is a firefighter who says it’s not his job to dodge bullets, we need gun control.”
Again we see that gun control activists only care about violence when it is gun violence.
It shouldn’t have been his job to dodge bottles and bricks thrown at him when he was trying to stop rioters from burning his city, but anti gun activists praised #BLM.
Now that his city is trying to sufficiently prepare him for an active shooter, anti gun activists will turn him into a hero.
I am somewhat surprised firefighters and EMTs haven’t been issued ballistic vests before now. During the Watts and other riots in the sixties, firefighters were deliberately targeted. Same for the Rodney King riots. My college roommate, in the ’70s, worked for a period of time as an EMT. He carried a concealed firearm while working, due to the threat of people attacking EMS to obtain drugs. this was in a small city in Idaho, not an urban sewer.
So, this guy seems to think that wishful thinking will somehow make very real dangers disappear.
I can just imagine it. He will be fighting some fire somewhere, and the bullets will start flying, and he will point at his helmet and say “Stop shooting at me, I am a firefighter.” and in his universe the assailants will just drop their guns and walk away.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
I’m a professional (insert non-fireman job here), I shouldn’t have to take precautions, learn fire safety, install and test smoke detectors, have and learn how to use a fire extinguisher, or practice fire escape routes… I’m not a F-ing Firefighter, not my job or responsibility!
*smh*
As a military & government worker I had training and performed all the above, my job(s) were not even closely related to firefighting. Still, knowing how to properly use a fire extinguisher saved my house from a closet fire getting out of control.
You hope for the best, but plan and train for the worst case scenarios.
I spent 22 years as a firefighter/paramedic before I retired and became a teacher. I trained with and worked with SWAT. We wore vests. We practiced with guns, even though our fire chief (who was a NY chief hired by the city) wouldn’t let us use or carry guns. That was why I quite SWAT. I am not entering a building dressed like SWAT, but unarmed.
You are right, this guy is a pussy.
Wishful thinking is not a very well-thought-out strategy for conducting your life, you idiot. If you can’t stand the heat (no pun intended), get out of the kitchen.
I still fail to see how apparently intelligent people can truly believe that a magic law against guns will make all the bad guys go away and leave you alone.
Are they that stupid? Apparently so.