It seems that CNN had a public forum, a town hall type meeting that is big in the news this morning.
Ostensibly set up as a place for survivors of the latest outrage to vent, they invited local politicos to attend. Senator Marco Rubio was one who showed up. Of course, CNN scripted the whole thing, to provide coverage to their preferred narrative that guns are bad and Republicans are evil. Kudos to Rubio for showing up to be the scapegoat. Those people needed to vent, and he provided the target.
These folks are grieving. I get it. They're hurting and they aren't getting the answers they need. The horrible truth is that they won't get the answers they seek. Those answers don't exist. The sick, tormented person who conducted the atrocity (no, I won't use his name), probably doesn't have the answers. Those answers won't exist until we as a society get over the idea that Government is the answer. It's not, it's often the problem.
Government allowed the offender to stay in the school system, long after it was apparent that he was a continuing problem. Government failed to heed warnings that he was dangerous. Government failed to protect the innocent children that were slain. Government failed.
I was in a meeting the other night, talking exactly about these things. Someone mentioned that "this is the world we live in", and I've been thinking about that phrase, and the implications of that mindset. When I hear that, I seem to hear that we, as a society, are willing to live in a less free society because sometimes bad people do bad things.
In related news, I see that Broward County deputies will carry rifles on school campuses.I admit to mixed feelings about that. We all know that I'm a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and I've carried rifles as part of my duty when I was in other assignments and working for my Uncle.
But, if this is the world we live in, perhaps the bad guys have won. Of course we have a mandate to protect the children, but at what price? I admit that I'll have to ponder this a bit longer.
if this is to be believed, he was kept in school despite his misbehavior because he had a Hispanic last name and Broward County was under fire for disciplining Hispanics, so they just stopped doing it:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/02/did_the_progressive_broward_county_solution_cost_17_student_lives.html
I wish I could find the link...read something yesterday that the shooter was never 'expelled' because the law says you can't expel kids. They have a 'right' to an education.
ReplyDeleteHe was apparently sent to an alternative school for a while, more than once. Wasn't a problem there, got sent back to the regular school, where he was a problem.
As far as deputies/cops assigned to schools carrying rifles: do they mean actually toting them around at all times, or just having one, either in their office or their car? Because there's a big difference there. I'm a cop at a major (60,000+ student) public university. We have a shotgun and a rifle in our cars, every shift. Plus helmets and rifle-rated body armor. After Virginia Tech, we got breach kits (Halligan tool, sledgehammer, bolt cutters) for every car. And the last time any of our officers actually fired a gun was over a decade ago, with a load of birdshot to kill a problematic rattlesnake.
And finally, this has got to make PawPaw absolutely sick: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-florida-shooting-sro-20180222-story.html
Among other things, it was apparently an 'open' campus, so no real security. I still think the answer is to remove the gun free zones from schools, and allow well trained personnel to carry on campus. None of these turds want to die, they want to score points, and then be 'heroes' in prison while lawyers fight off their death penalties.
ReplyDeleteDepending on the construction/layout, some schools would be pretty difficult to make into closed campuses. The high school that I attended consists of something like a dozen buildings, spread over several acres. The only fences are around the athletic fields, and the teachers' parking lot (this last mostly to keep students from messing with the cars.) Short of building a medieval style wall around it, 'closed campus' isn't realistic.
ReplyDelete