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.
Notice how the Left never vents its rage against the lunatic who did the shooting and never wonders how Cruz was visited 39 times by local law enforcement, multiple government social workers, psychologists and educators, at huge taxpayer expense, and yet nothing was accomplished. They find it much easier and emotionally gratifying to blame an inanimate object and their political opponents.
bgill wrote: “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 typical gun-banner response would be “people need cars, they don’t need a gun”. (I’ve debated those people for many years, I know all their answers)
I read that he was not on campus at the time. And the football coach who died actually was an unarmed guard who by federal law could not carry a gun at the school. Imagine if he was armed.
And I’m sure Mr. Goldberg remembers when many high school students participated in rifle clubs and hunting. Yet these shoot ‘em up rampages were not happening in the schools back during those years. I got all sorts of pathetic remarks about how “they didn’t have Rambo types of guns back then, did they?” but people seem to have a hard time accepting that these incidents simply were not taking place back then as they’ve had in all of these recent years, regardless of what guns were or were not legally available.
Sounds like those 17 killed needed one.
There's that word again, need. I've read the 2nd Amendment many times. As I recall, the word "need" does not appear in any way, shape, or form in there.
People want to ban "assault rifles" because they sound scary and dangerous. Couple of problems with that - one, defining just what makes a rifle an "assault" rifle. It is a relatively subjective term. Two, even with all the various tragedies brought to us by the evil and insane, your chances of getting killed by a rifle - any kind of rifle, are somewhat less than your chances of being bludgeoned to death by a hammer from the local big box home improvement store. So statistically speaking and for efficiency's sake we should focus our energy on the bigger threats first - assault hammers.
People want to ban AR-15s any time they are used to commit a crime. Guess what, the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. Of course they are going to wind up in criminal's hands. Even if you managed to ban them without starting a civil war, even if you managed to confiscate them from law abiding citizens without starting a civil war (and remember, there's a lot of them seeing as how they are the most popular)... Some other rile would then "move up" to being the most popular and guess what - they would end up being used in crimes.
People want to ban "high capacity" magazines. This is generally absurd. If you take a reasoned, dispassionate look at the timelines of virtually any/all mass shootings you find out the perpetrator had all kinds of time - minutes to tens of minutes - to commit his/her crimes. Magazine swaps take just a couple of seconds. The number of rounds in a magazine has virtually no impact on the outcome of the event.
People want to ban pistol grips. I really don't know why. I think it is because they believe such grips make the weapon somehow significantly more effective? Two thoughts here, sort of at opposite ends of the spectrum. One, at the ranges most of these shots are taken at, a rifle, any rifle, is going to be very effective regardless of any one feature. Two, if we're talking about my self defense firearm that I'm using to defend my family from a home invasion, h**l yeah I want the most effective weapon possible. Why would you want to deny me effective protection? What's "effective enough?" Hey, maybe airbags and seat belts for just 3 out of the 4 seats in my car are "safe enough" too. Or obeying the speed limit for 20 out of the 32 miles of my commute is good enough...
People want to ban bayonet lugs. This is ridiculous. Why is anyone wasting time/energy arguing this? When was the last time a bayonet on a rifle was used to kill someone???
People want to ban ... It doesn't matter because the one universal feature of every ban, every limit is that in order to be effective, criminals must obey the ban/law. This is patently absurd. By definition criminals break laws. Expecting a new law to deter someone already prepared to break a dozen or more other laws... You might as well expect that requiring everyone to floss and use mouthwash would stop crime. Yes, that level of absurdity.
Anyone who expresses thoughts of suicide.
Sorry Bernie, but if cops are called about someone 39 times and you can’t find anything to arrest them for, you aren’t really trying.
If prisons can be guarded, why can’t our schools?
Certain people want to ban guns in order to punish those who have guns because those who own them disagree with the gungrabbers who resent being disagreed with.
Nothing to do with preventing crime, everything to do with POWER.
At least in Texas there is a crime of making a terroristic threat.
Blacks killing blacks. No one cares. These were white upper-middle class kids.
Do what Israel teachers do, arm the teachers. ......................................... Not only the Israelis, the Beslan school siege is the deadliest school massacre by death toll (334 killed). I wonder how the Russians handled their schools after that? Maybe if students wore school uniforms, those who come in without wearing one, would be questioned or stopped at the door. Nothing like approaching an armed guard with a MP5 and a German or Belgian sheppard at his side.
I don’t know how long ago it was, but this has been happening since at least Charlie Whitman and the Texas Tower, but I read the worst school attack was a bomb that killed twenty something in the 1920s.
The only thing we know for sure is that it was a gun free zone.
What was that definition of insanity again?
Agree. Reopen the 800,000 psych beds closed in late 1970’s.
Put the dangerously agitated under observation, treatment. Isolate.
Remove the mentally unhealthy from the healthy school population.
Allow school staff to carry in schools.
Add metal detectors and guards at schools.
If found guilty, hang these perps publicly with only a diaper on, and put their parents in prison a while, too.
If law enforcement failed to act on warnings, criminally prosecute the bosses.
No gun law changes are necessary.
And on the flip side - there also was an unarmed security guard on the campus.
He was one of the 17 dead.
Regardless of the "rules", I think I'd be carrying. Better to face the possible consequences of breaking a rule, than face sure termination by a shooter.
Bump
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