Politics and Society: Florida Shooting
In the aftermath of yet another mass-shooting in Florida the debate resumes about how to prevent such events. While Washington will once again debate more gun controls, the merits, etc. another school is shot up. Who now can still claim they feel that their children are safe in our public schools? I have two high school-aged children, I cannot say that I feel they are safe at their high school. But will a ban on semi-automatic firearms, or the capacity of their magazines help? If the 19-year-old man whom was responsible for the attack of Feb 14th 2018 was not allowed to purchase the AR-15 that he used do we think that he would not have tried to procure it illegally? Do we think that he would have not tried using a different firearm? They found evidence of bomb-making in his home, he had many items other than the firearm and victims of the Boston Marathon bombing will testify that it does not take a firearm to maim and murder. He had intent and with intent people like him will get it done one way or another.
We can do obvious things like closing any loop holes where an individual can forego a background check when procuring a firearm, however, in many of the mass-shooting cases we've seen this would not have changed anything about the tragic events, actually none of the last twenty to be more precise. We can imagine banning guns or types of guns altogether, but we all know that such efforts are impotent in their effectiveness. Columbine happened prior to the expiration of the assault-weapon ban. Data has shown empirically that restricting the ownership of higher than 10-round capacity magazines has little affect upon the lethality of a potential shooter whether they are experience or inexperienced. While such a measure would slightly reduce the lethality of the weapon it wouldn't have changed anything for this most recent event and many others (with a few notable exceptions, i.e. Las Vegas which was high-cap + bumpstock).
All that weapon bans and restrictions really accomplish is and increased profitability for criminal enterprise and possibly the criminalization of otherwise law-abiding citizens. It is also a blatant infringement upon our rights, but that aside, a gun-ban could not be accomplished with an open boarder... even then it is simply not realistic. Not here, not in America.
The other topic that people go after every time another deranged person makes the choice to commit mass-murder is the topic of mental health. While it is believable the root of the problem (not the firearms), people will still slip through the cracks. How could we have prevented this most recent case? Some teens said he was imbalanced, so what, we take away his rights because of what others have stated? We drag him in for psych-evals because of what other youth have said? Won't take long for abuses of that power to happen, as we have seen with false allegations of misconduct from teens.
Another precaution that people bring up is hardening the target areas. This might be helpful, but these precautions can be very costly especially to sprawling campuses. Metal detectors and security checkpoints can prevent armed assailants from freely entering buildings and such, but the cost and logistics will be hard to implement for many schools and we have seen that when this has been implemented at European airports all that it accomplishes is that the soft targets are simply relocated further away from the hardened areas. Again, it may help a bit in the casualty count and it may not.
So what can be done? Some of these precautions will probably do little more than reduce the number of individuals that choose to attempt such atrocities by no more than a single-digit percentage, if that. The truth is that Washington will fail to act in both capacities, special interests on both sides of the gun and mental health debate will throw millions of dollars at the problem with little to no result. There has been something proposed a few times now that have not been adopted due to the fragility of some people's sensibility. Armed campus monitors. Having well-trained and armed campus monitors will have a two-fold impact. First it will deter, at minimum, a double-digit percentage of mass-shooting attempts. Second, it will reduce the lethality of such events when carried out. To support my first assertion, when we have armed campus monitors we technically no longer have a gun-free zone. It is certainly still unlawful for the regular Joe to possess a firearm in such a place but the authorized personnel is armed, thus not gun-free. There is a reason these mass-shooters typically target such 'zones', the first is that they are obviously cowards. Choosing to shoot at and murder unarmed people unable to defend themselves is the very definition of a coward. Another reason is the cowardly ambition to maximize the body count... because no one is going to shoot back until a standard response time that follows the initial distress call to law enforcement. Time enough to massacre and plan out a stand-off or escape. To back up the second key point of this proposal is than in numerous mass-shootings the body count stops as soon as the shooter is presented with armed opposition, again often because they are a coward. What do our politicians do to deter and protect themselves against deranged political adversaries? Armed guards.
I know that many are not happy with such a proposition, those that perhaps don't believe in guns, for those folks here is a reality check; guns are real, whether you believe in them or not. Belief indicates debate over something that cannot be proven to exist. UFO's, Ghosts, and God may require belief even though there may exist much supporting evidence for all three, no one that I know can offer empirical evidence for any of those things but we can offer empirical evidence that guns exist and that owning, keeping, and bearing them increases one's chances at surviving a home invasion or other robbery... it happens every week and is poorly reported on but check the FBI statistics... empirical evidence. They exist and both good and bad people are going to have access to them. Let's make sure there is a good guy or two present with our children, that which is worth protecting more than anything else we have.
Obviously most of us dream of a country where we don't have to arm campus monitors to protect our kids, we'd all rather do something else. If the last twenty years can illustrate anything it is that these events are not going away any time soon and neither are guns. Arming these monitors (and thoroughly screening and training them) is something we can do now, it won't even take six months to implement, and it will add a significant measure to protect our children in public schools. It may not fit one's ideology but it does fit reason.
While Washington debates, we can do something now. People often say catchy phrases like, "the answer to gun violence is not more guns", and while that may sound witty and progressive it is detached from reality and it lacks an honest description of this proposal, which would be phrased better as, "the answer to bad people with guns is good people with guns", and before you criticize it remember that this was the answer to Hitler, the answer that our law-enforcement institutions are basically built on or in the least what makes them effective -Imagine an unarmed law enforcement in this country... yeah, not effective.
The leftist-ideology of our teachers is not going to protect our children, much less our teachers. A trained police veteran, or combat veteran charged with protecting our youth will. And most importantly, this precaution can be done now.
I don't understand why people still oppose this, all the data indicates that of all things proposed this would be the most impacting and life saving measure that we can implement, as well as the most logistically practical and affordable measure. We are talking about the lives of children, is your ideology more important than that?
Let me know what you think.
Update: Since writing this, much more information has come available regarding the Florida shooting. There were campus monitors in employment of local law enforcement... that were told to hold and stand down while the shooting went on. So, they were impotent to say the least. I cannot understand such an order and neither can any of the law enforcement professionals that I know and have spoken to on this matter.
Thanks for reading.
We can do obvious things like closing any loop holes where an individual can forego a background check when procuring a firearm, however, in many of the mass-shooting cases we've seen this would not have changed anything about the tragic events, actually none of the last twenty to be more precise. We can imagine banning guns or types of guns altogether, but we all know that such efforts are impotent in their effectiveness. Columbine happened prior to the expiration of the assault-weapon ban. Data has shown empirically that restricting the ownership of higher than 10-round capacity magazines has little affect upon the lethality of a potential shooter whether they are experience or inexperienced. While such a measure would slightly reduce the lethality of the weapon it wouldn't have changed anything for this most recent event and many others (with a few notable exceptions, i.e. Las Vegas which was high-cap + bumpstock).
All that weapon bans and restrictions really accomplish is and increased profitability for criminal enterprise and possibly the criminalization of otherwise law-abiding citizens. It is also a blatant infringement upon our rights, but that aside, a gun-ban could not be accomplished with an open boarder... even then it is simply not realistic. Not here, not in America.
The other topic that people go after every time another deranged person makes the choice to commit mass-murder is the topic of mental health. While it is believable the root of the problem (not the firearms), people will still slip through the cracks. How could we have prevented this most recent case? Some teens said he was imbalanced, so what, we take away his rights because of what others have stated? We drag him in for psych-evals because of what other youth have said? Won't take long for abuses of that power to happen, as we have seen with false allegations of misconduct from teens.
Another precaution that people bring up is hardening the target areas. This might be helpful, but these precautions can be very costly especially to sprawling campuses. Metal detectors and security checkpoints can prevent armed assailants from freely entering buildings and such, but the cost and logistics will be hard to implement for many schools and we have seen that when this has been implemented at European airports all that it accomplishes is that the soft targets are simply relocated further away from the hardened areas. Again, it may help a bit in the casualty count and it may not.
So what can be done? Some of these precautions will probably do little more than reduce the number of individuals that choose to attempt such atrocities by no more than a single-digit percentage, if that. The truth is that Washington will fail to act in both capacities, special interests on both sides of the gun and mental health debate will throw millions of dollars at the problem with little to no result. There has been something proposed a few times now that have not been adopted due to the fragility of some people's sensibility. Armed campus monitors. Having well-trained and armed campus monitors will have a two-fold impact. First it will deter, at minimum, a double-digit percentage of mass-shooting attempts. Second, it will reduce the lethality of such events when carried out. To support my first assertion, when we have armed campus monitors we technically no longer have a gun-free zone. It is certainly still unlawful for the regular Joe to possess a firearm in such a place but the authorized personnel is armed, thus not gun-free. There is a reason these mass-shooters typically target such 'zones', the first is that they are obviously cowards. Choosing to shoot at and murder unarmed people unable to defend themselves is the very definition of a coward. Another reason is the cowardly ambition to maximize the body count... because no one is going to shoot back until a standard response time that follows the initial distress call to law enforcement. Time enough to massacre and plan out a stand-off or escape. To back up the second key point of this proposal is than in numerous mass-shootings the body count stops as soon as the shooter is presented with armed opposition, again often because they are a coward. What do our politicians do to deter and protect themselves against deranged political adversaries? Armed guards.
I know that many are not happy with such a proposition, those that perhaps don't believe in guns, for those folks here is a reality check; guns are real, whether you believe in them or not. Belief indicates debate over something that cannot be proven to exist. UFO's, Ghosts, and God may require belief even though there may exist much supporting evidence for all three, no one that I know can offer empirical evidence for any of those things but we can offer empirical evidence that guns exist and that owning, keeping, and bearing them increases one's chances at surviving a home invasion or other robbery... it happens every week and is poorly reported on but check the FBI statistics... empirical evidence. They exist and both good and bad people are going to have access to them. Let's make sure there is a good guy or two present with our children, that which is worth protecting more than anything else we have.
Obviously most of us dream of a country where we don't have to arm campus monitors to protect our kids, we'd all rather do something else. If the last twenty years can illustrate anything it is that these events are not going away any time soon and neither are guns. Arming these monitors (and thoroughly screening and training them) is something we can do now, it won't even take six months to implement, and it will add a significant measure to protect our children in public schools. It may not fit one's ideology but it does fit reason.
While Washington debates, we can do something now. People often say catchy phrases like, "the answer to gun violence is not more guns", and while that may sound witty and progressive it is detached from reality and it lacks an honest description of this proposal, which would be phrased better as, "the answer to bad people with guns is good people with guns", and before you criticize it remember that this was the answer to Hitler, the answer that our law-enforcement institutions are basically built on or in the least what makes them effective -Imagine an unarmed law enforcement in this country... yeah, not effective.
The leftist-ideology of our teachers is not going to protect our children, much less our teachers. A trained police veteran, or combat veteran charged with protecting our youth will. And most importantly, this precaution can be done now.
I don't understand why people still oppose this, all the data indicates that of all things proposed this would be the most impacting and life saving measure that we can implement, as well as the most logistically practical and affordable measure. We are talking about the lives of children, is your ideology more important than that?
Let me know what you think.
Update: Since writing this, much more information has come available regarding the Florida shooting. There were campus monitors in employment of local law enforcement... that were told to hold and stand down while the shooting went on. So, they were impotent to say the least. I cannot understand such an order and neither can any of the law enforcement professionals that I know and have spoken to on this matter.
Thanks for reading.
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-J