1 Mar 2018 What About The School Shooting?

What About The School Shooting?

I waited a couple a weeks to comment on the school shooting in Florida.  Most of the time in the heat of the moment just after a tragedy like that, ones emotions take over and solutions proposed may not have the unintended consequences thought out.

This particular time there were multiple signals that a problem did exist.  Everyone looks back and says how could we have missed this?  Also, a law enforcement officer was on the scene.  For whatever reason he chose not to enter the building until help arrived.  He has to live with that decision because kids lost their lives over it.

There are the inevitable calls for gun control in many levels of severity.  Should an AR-15 be a gun available to the public.  I don’t think so.  Should a 19-year-old be able to purchase one?  Yes.  You can’t say they are old enough to enter the military to kill people for the government but not old enough to own one themselves.

A father of girl who was killed put it best. It is not about guns right now but school safety.  How do we protect kids from this?  If you look at it purely from a statistics standpoint, the chances of a school shooting at your particular school are extremely low.  But we should not take this approach.  The Florida school had cameras, but with a 20 min tape delay to the police which probably cost lives.  It had a police officer on-site.  Other than making it a prison during the school hours, that is a complete lock down, it had good security.  Perhaps having only one entrance after school started with alarmed doors if opened may have helped. At some schools this is not practical due to the size of the student body.  At some schools, students have to go outside to get to their next class. The hallways are too crowded to move through.

Do we need better background checks when purchasing guns? Yes.  This killer had many 911 calls from his mom for police to come for some type of disturbance.  That alone should have been a red flag for gun purchases. 

The mental health community will make their usual statements the killer had mental health issues and we can stigmatize him.  I bet this will be the case put forth by his defense lawyers.  I really disagree with the premise that you cannot be fully responsible for your actions if you have some “mental illness.”   If you do the crime, you do the crime period, end of story.  I know this will piss off a lot of people in the mental health world, however, when a tragedy likes this occurs I don’t care.  Kids are dead, a person did it. 

What should Congress, and State legislatures do?  Make in-depth background checks a part of the gun purchase process.  Have a waiting period before taking possession of gun, I would say 30 days after completion the background check.  What criteria should deny a person the right buy a gun? Convicted felons already are prevented.  Are there non-felony laws that if broken should prevent a gun purchase, yes?  Two DUI convictions should be a criterion.  If you are not responsible with alcohol, how can you be responsible with a gun? 

A debate needs to be had about what type of guns the public can buy.  This is the most contentious of any other proposal.  The NRA would fight this with all its might.  I support the 2^nd Amendment but not unlimited gun rights.

With multiple school tragedies you would think more would have been done.  This is not the case.  We repeat this cycle.  There will be another school shooting as sad it is to say that.  My pessimistic view is it will take some shooter going into a rich private school in Washington DC and killing Congressman and Senators kids before real action will be taken at the national level. Until it impacts them personally, the NRA controls their vote.  It has to come from the local and move up to the national level.  A politician has to know the votes are out there to get him/her out of office if they do nothing. 

Where is the moral courage to do the right thing?