Barry Levinson
My wife’s sister, her husband and her two children until last fall lived in Parkland Florida. One daughter graduated from that high school a few years ago while the other had been attending that school until a few short months ago.
We now know that a friend of my sister-in-law lost a son from a bullet wound to the neck while my niece knows of a friend that was wounded in the leg and will hopefully fully recover from his wound.
Yes if only there were no guns available in the United States things might have been different. Even if you favor the elimination of the 2nd Amendment, how long do you think it would take to confiscate all guns throughout the United States? My guess is that it would take decades to remove most of the guns but there would still be millions of guns out there almost exclusively in the hands of criminals.
So whatever your feelings about guns, the reality is that removing guns from society is not something that could be accomplished easily and certainly not quickly. However, I am in favor of beefing up our laws as it relates to denying guns to people with mental health issues. We also now know that the FBI had this murderer on their radar and failed to investigate him thoroughly. We had the tools to stop him and yet our FBI failed us. We also know that many classmates and school administrators alike knew he was a ticking time bomb. After almost two decades of being told that if you see something suspicious, report it, the vast majority of citizens choose not to get involved.
So what do we do today to stop the carnage. We beef up security in our schools. We allow well trained security guards to carry guns. What does this accomplish? It accomplishes two things. First it sends a clear message that if you try to murder children at school you will be met with lethal force by guards already at the school. Second for those that still attempt to murder students, the armed security guards will limit the carnage. There will be an immediate response to the shootings. In the five, ten, twenty or even 30 minutes for the local police to respond to the shooting, many innocent lives have been lost and will continue to be lost without action.
This is not a total solution but it will save innocent lives. And that parents is much better than what we have been doing as a society and that is nothing or next to nothing.
#1 by Barry Levinson on February 16, 2018 - 7:31 pm
With all that we know now about what law enforcement authorities knew both locally, at the FBI plus what the school administrators knew about Cruz, one has to wonder how this happened. A Question that needs to be asked! Were those children sacrificed at the alter of those in power wanting to confiscate our guns? If you believe the answer is no, than you have to believe that the FBI, the Broward Sheriff Department and the Broward School District Superintendent are all total buffoons of the 1st magnitude! The other question that must be asked is what is the probability that all these agencies of law enforcement and the Broward School District missed all these huge warning signs by accident!
Manage