Posted on 02/20/2018 5:24:52 AM PST by Kaslin
Here we go again. This time it was at a high school in Florida. It has become depressingly familiar. Not just the horrific shooting, but also the words that come after something like this.
Officials assure us that the victims and their families are in their thoughts and prayers. Then come the calls for more restrictions on guns. Then we get the reminders that if we see something we need to say something. It's all so predictable.
But by now we know something else that's predictable: It's going to happen again -- if not at a school, then at a concert or a nightclub or a restaurant or an airport or even at a church.
Nikolas Cruz had been expelled from school for getting into a fight with another student. Kids who knew him said if anyone were ever going to shoot the place up, he would be the kid who did just that. And last September a comment left on social media said, "I'm going to be a professional school shooter." The name underneath the message: Nikolas Cruz.
A bail bondsman from Mississippi saw the comment and called the FBI. Five months later, just one day after the shooting, an FBI agent said, "No other information was included in the comment which would indicate a particular time, location, or the true identity of the person who posted the comment." The FBI said it reviewed databases and made other checks, but was, according to the agency, unable to identify the person who posted the comment.
It gets worse. A day after that announcement, the FBI admitted that on Jan. 5, a tipster who knew Cruz called the FBI and provided information about Cruz's guns, his desire to kill people, his erratic behavior and his disturbing social media posts. The FBI says the caller was concerned that Cruz might attack a school. CARTOONS | Lisa Benson View Cartoon
The tip should have been investigated, according to the FBI. It was not.
So much for "If you see something, say something." And so much for what some have called the "Best law enforcement agency in the world."
But even if the FBI had shown more competence and had found Cruz, what could its agents have done? They can't lock somebody up for posting disturbing remarks -- certainly not if he told them he was only kidding. Even people who eventually go on a killing spree have free speech rights.
And he bought his gun, a semi-automatic AR-15, legally. Sure he was mentally deranged -- nobody in his right mind does what he did -- but being a loner and a troublemaker who loves guns isn't a legal barrier to buying one.
And while everyone agrees mentally ill people shouldn't be allowed to buy guns, how do we determine that someone is mentally ill until he does something that really proves it?
Do we want laws compelling mental health professionals to report the names to a national data bank of anyone they're seeing for anger issues? For anyone who might go off the rails? Do we want laws that allow police and federal agents to lock people up if they give signs of mental illness -- but have not been violent? Do we want laws that prohibit the posting of gun pictures on social media -- or laws that ban vaguely threatening speech?
The same people who want more restrictions on guns would never sit still for more restrictions on speech or fewer restrictions on privacy.
So maybe the laws need to change. Maybe people like Nikolas Cruz should have been held a long time ago and forced to undergo a psychiatric exam. In retrospect, that might have done some good. But it's an idea loaded with the possibility of abuse.
There's already the predictable talk about banning AR-15s, the so-called assault rifles. They're not needed to protect families from intruders, the argument goes; hunters don't need them. Maybe something will happen this time, but it's not likely.
We can beef up security at our schools and that might help. But last November, 26 people were gunned down in Sutherlands Springs, Texas -- at the First Baptist Church. Do we need armed guards at prayer services all over America, too?
The problem -- and "problem" is not the right word -- is that we live in a free country. And in a free country we can lock up criminals after they commit crimes -- not before.
So let's tighten security at every school in the country; let's have the same familiar conversation about guns; let's all agree that mentally ill people should not be allowed to buy guns. Let's try to put an end to this American tragedy.
And then let's acknowledge that not much is going to change despite the fact that 17 more people are dead. We can tell the victims that they're in our thoughts and prayers, and after a while we'll resume our normal daily lives -- until it happens again. And we all know it will.
Here we go again is right!
The one thing that is clear is that the Brown Shirt Media will publicize it to the moon which guarantees the next psychopath will be even more motivated to become the NEXT famous school shooter.
Why the talk of gun grabbing?
Doesn’t London’s Islamist mayor say that this sort of thing happens in any big city?
Put retired police and military to work as school security guards who are armed.
From the artilce: “And while everyone agrees mentally ill people shouldn’t be allowed to buy guns, how do we determine that someone is mentally ill until he does something that really proves it?”
According to some, anyone who wants to own a gun is too mentally ill to own one.
The gun grabbers want any new gun control restrictions to go to a fed court challenge.
Actual threats to kill, shoot up a location or victims, or similar threats provable by verifiable evidence such as videos, writings, or recorded statements made by a person should be in background checks as an outright block.
Do what Israel teachers do, arm the teachers.
Such threats are ALREADY illegal. I may not be a lawyer but it sounds a lot like the definition of “assault” to me. It only becomes “battery” when you actually do it.
Do not be confused when someone - as happened to me - says there has been 30 ‘mass shooting’ just this year. This is Newspeak. If there are 4 or more shootings during the same general time and in the same general area, you have a ‘mass shooting’.
No longer is a ‘mass shooting’ defined as one crazy guy shooting a bunch of people, but as 4 or more people shooting 4 or more people in the same city and roughly the same time.
MSN Newspeak.
If the news media had not made the Columbine school killers into media sensations, perhaps there would not have been so many that followed, Mr. Goldberg.
Do not further limit the Second Amendment rights without limiting the media’s First Amendment rights. The Left’s argument that no assault weapons be allowed because they didn’t exist when the Bill of Rights was written could also be applied to the First Amendment. Only newspapers and pamphlets would be allowed freedom of the press, because radio, television and computers did not exist at the time.
Echoing what Mark Levin spoke of on his radio show last pm.
Think of the security that our Congresscritters have-both federal and state. Think of the security of the White House and other federal sites.
Think of the security in place at airports.
And on and on. Guards, arms, metal detectors, fences, gates, locks.......
Not 100% secure, but in a free society 100% security is not attainable. Probably not attainable in any scenario.
His statement was, if we meet with our Congresscritters, ask them if our children deserve even a tenth of the security at schools that they do.
I agree. We need to provide security at schools.
All these mass shootings happened after the mental hospitals closed. Just saying.
The next time some wacko drives 90 mph down the wrong way of a street crashing into cars and killing people, lets ignore the crazy and demand stronger traffic laws.
The problem is EXISTING laws are not enforced. The Rats don’t want them enforced on the off chance on might actually work and then there would be no further need for Moore “gun control”. Check on the number of “failed NCIS checks” that were prosecuted. Out of hundreds of thousands, last I heard, the number was single digits. Yet “failing an NCIS check” is a felony in itself. Says so right on the form.
You said it, and it’s high time to reopen them again.
CCW—and the entire problem is solved.
Naaaaaaaaaaah—too easy.
Using that definition Chicago has become one LONG mass shooting...
One thing lost amongst the barrage of rhetoric - apparently there WAS an armed "School Resource Officer" in the school who claims "he didn't encounter the shooter".
My question is - What precisely was he doing while people were dying?
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