Posted on 02/17/2018 5:48:16 AM PST by Kaslin
During the intense media coverage of Wednesday's tragic events in Parkland, Fla., I was shocked to hear it was the 18th school shooting so far this year.
Eighteen. In 45 days.
That sounds terrible.
That sounds like a huge American crisis that needs to be addressed immediately by our great leaders in Washington.
But that 18 number, which the anti-gun lobby in the media has emphasized without going into the details of the individual incidents, is highly misleading.
None of those previous shootings was anything like the horrible one on Wednesday that left 17 students and teachers dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The year's worst previous shooting, which happened in Kentucky at a high school less than a month ago, left two students dead and 14 wounded by gunfire.
The only other death was a single murder that occurred on a college campus.
Two of the shootings that occurred at one of the country's 120,000 public and private schools this year were suicides.
Some involved guns firing accidentally. And most of the other incidents were random shootings on public school property that resulted in no one being hurt.
But these details of the earlier shootings didn't matter to religious anti-gun nuts in the media like Don Lemon of CNN and liberal politicians like Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Before we knew hardly anything about the Parkland shooting they were offering their usual simplistic solution for stopping what Murphy exaggeratedly called "this epidemic of mass slaughter" in our schools.
To no one's surprise, they called for new laws to control or outlaw guns, especially semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15.
Lemon and Murphy will never give up their gun-control pipe dreams.
But those of us who live in the real world know that no law will ever be devised or enforced that can stop a determined mass killer from getting his hands on a gun if he wanted one badly enough.
Anyway, guns aren't the problem. There are 300 million of all kinds floating around the country. An infinitesimal fraction are used by people to hurt other people.
But there has to be something going on in our society that has caused angry, evil or mentally disturbed young men to plan and carry out these rare mass shootings at Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland.
Is it because of social media? Violent video games? Bullying in schools? Broken families? Anti-depressant drugs? Boredom? All of the above? Something else?
Whatever the cause, we need to sit down as a country and figure out how we can identify, help or stop crazy or violent individuals before they carry out their deadly attacks.
Meanwhile, forget the gun-control politics. If we really want to protect our kids in schools we have to get serious.
We need to put guards in our schools - armed guards, not spectators.
We need to make sure any potential mass killer, young or old, knows that our schools are no longer "gun free" zones.
Better yet, as Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News suggests, we need to copy the Israelis.
For years they've successfully protected their schoolchildren's lives from attack with strong fences, locked gates, careful ID checks and cameras.
But they've also done the smartest thing - arming and training classroom teachers who can defend against intruders. And no one knows which teacher is packing a gun.
Increasing security at our nearly 100,000 public schools to prevent future Parklands will cost us a lot of money.
Local districts and the states should pay most of the tab. But how about this idea:
Instead of the federal government raising my gas tax 12 cents a gallon and pretending it's going to be used to fix our highways, why not use the money to hire guards for our schools - and give them guns they know how to use.
Liberals tell us its guns that are the problem. No, Stupid - its human nature.
The removal of Christianity—God—from our society has allowed hate to enter the psyche of America. A godless America will send it into a mass madness of self destruction.
It still not the guns that kill people but it is still the guns in good people that stop the bad people from controlling us. So, the bad people use the killing of good people by other bad people as an excuse to take guns away from the good people.
Yes, liberals are bad people. Period.
JoMa
Our country’s problem isn’t guns, it’s our culture.
When I started teaching, students bringing guns to school was no big deal. Teachers and students would have guns in their cars during hunting season; I had kids ask to keep their gun in my room for safe keeping until the school day ended.
AND THERE WAS NEVER A PROBLEM.
I think years of teaching that there are no moral absolutes, that right and wrong are negotiable depending on the circumstances, and that there is no Truth, that everyone has their own truth, has reached its sad, but logical, outcome.
If we teach that life has no value in the womb, why are we shocked when someone doesn’t recognize that meaningless distinction and decides to take lives outside the womb?
I know from family members in the school system that there are many students with mental health issues. The administration and the school board insist that their programs in place to INCLUDE these disturbed students in a clam learning environment around normal students will cure their problems. More irresponsible over compassionate liberals with no doctorate experience making decisions without the greater student body parents knowing. This along with the refusal of armed security that they feel will disrupt the calm learning environment is the arrogant road block they have erected that was ultimately one of the main reasons why this happened. Just the admission of the program they have initiated to keep these odd kids from “school to jail” tells the story
Amen
It’s fun to go to the Classmates.com website and see the older yearbooks and to see not just celebrities in their high school days but school rifle and shooting clubs in which both boys and girls participated in. No eyebrows were raised and no abhorrent incidents took place either.
I agree we should protect the children the way Israel does but can you imagine telling these progressive teachers they will be required to carry a weapon?
Heads will explode.
What is emerging now is that local authorities had AMPLE warnings about Cruz but did nothing. First, there is the FBI ‘not being able to trace’ the Cruz lead (all they had to do is call the high school). Then there is this: the police were called to the Cruz home 39 times since 2010. On average, thats 5-6 times a year! Given this and the fact that Cruz had repeated incidents at school (including bringing weapons in school) that lead to him being expelled, I have a simple question. Didn’t the police, high school and school district have a contingency plan for Cruz?? It seems that EVERYONE knew about Cruz and many believed that he could and would attack the school.......but did NOTHING to stop it. No plans, no coordination, no communication.....nothing.
Its not about the NRA and guns and need for additional laws. This is about the shear INCOMPETENCE of the local authorities who have numerous reports and knowledge of Cruz but treated the situation like it was no threat at all.
I said last night there were about 6 layers of defense that failed and allowed this tragedy. So, libs need to turn their rage against the failures and leave the unalienable right for a decent society to own guns alone.
There was a time when crazy people were institutionalized both for their sake and societies sake.
How can anyone bear to stand close to this animal? I could not tolerate being in the same room.
“There was a time when crazy people were institutionalized both for their sake and societies sake.”.....
Agreed! I have been around for over 80 years and don’t recall reading about school shootings by mental patients. Perhaps I missed those reports but I doubt it.
Excellent question.
How many mentally impaired people are there among our 325 million? How many of them can be predicted to become mass murderers? How many young black males can be predicted to commit violence?
“can you imagine telling these progressive teachers they will be required to carry a weapon?”
They’re free to resign their positions and find other employment.
L
Bookmark
Don't require it, make it a choice. Then "hoplophobe" shame those who decline (like fat-shaming, etc.). Someone who does not want it is less likely to use it appropriately anyway.
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