The Newtown tragedy is without a doubt a horror story, and our hearts go out to those families. No words can express our sorrow at their losses.
But we should give those families private time to grieve; and we should NEVER mention the killer-EVER…
Personally, I cannot believe how intrusive the media have been, questioning a third grader on what she saw??? WTF???
Having said that, as we all know, this was politicized almost immediately by Bloomberg and many others of the democrat persuasion…
The reality is this is NOT the worst school mass murder. The Bath School disaster reported HERE, was worse. And it was also perpetrated by a person with mental problems…
That is the first elephant in the room…
The mental health community has morphed away from actually treating and committing people due to numerous lawsuits by, among others, the ACLU. Also, due to ‘privacy’ concerns, many institutions will not report a person with mental health problems to NICS or even to local police. You can go find articles that point out that the ONLY way to get someone committed is to have charges filed against someone.
This article, HERE, points out the real state of affairs in the community…
“Mental health has shrunk down to the level of short-term crisis management,” Cornell says. “If we are going to focus on prevention, we can’t think about the gunman in the parking lot and what to do with him. We have to get involved a lot earlier.”
Schools and communities “have cut their mental health services to the bone,” says Cornell. “We’re paying a price for it as a society.”
If you go back and look at the Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, and Aurora shootings’ EACH of those people had problems, but those were never reported allowing them access to weapons… The Clakamas shooter’s profile is unknown (at least to me)…
The second Elephant is security…
Many school systems rely on ‘passive’ systems like locking exterior accesses, ‘limited’ access after specific times, or camera systems. The ‘rationale’ is they don’t want to ‘scare’ the children by having armed ‘police’ on campus.
A few school systems use School Resource Officers (SROs) who are either retired LEOs or are LEOs specifically hired to work in schools both for security. those SROs are armed, have full police powers and are directly connected to the local police departments via radio if they need assistance/backup.
Many were funded under programs from the Federal Government after Columbine…
However, those programs were de-funded by the current administration. Full article HERE…
Government officials told the Washington Guardian on Friday night that two Justice Department programs that had provided more than $200 million to schools for training, security equipment and police resources over the last decade weren’t renewed in 2011 and 2012, and that a separate program that provided $800 million to put police officers inside the schools was ended a few years earlier.
Meanwhile, the administration eliminated funding in 2011-12 for a separate Education Department program that gave money to schools to prepare for mass tragedies, the officials said.
A nationally recognized school security expert said those funds had been critical for years in helping schools continue to enhance protections against growing threats of violence. But they simply dried up with little notice as the Columbine and Virginia Tech school shooting tragedies faded from memory and many Americans and political leaders had their attentions diverted to elections, a weak economy and overseas dramas.
Chief Fitch, County Police Chief of St. Louis County has come out in favor of arming civilian employees, comparing it to what was done with airline pilots after 9/11. Full article HERE.
The money quotes- Fitch said the killing will not be stopped by legislation or laws. “If there’s somebody that’s really hellbent on doing something like this, they’re not going to care what the law is.”
And this one- “One of the first thing governments tend to cut back on in tight times are mental health services,” he said. “We know this individual has a mental health history in Connecticut, we’ve seen that in all the school shootings, and additional resources would be helpful.
L’il Chantilly over at Heels and Handguns has a good post up HERE on the five D’s for security in schools…
My personal opinion, the real issues will be ignored, some kind of gun ban will be thrown out there, and the administration and all the lefties will pat themselves on the back and go on about their lives…
And go HERE and read AOA’s response to what happened… He said it much better than I can…
Comments? Am I wrong, I know L’il Chantilly and AOA are on the money…
Oh yeah, one more little detail. An assault rifle (a REAL one) has a fully automatic capability… That is already covered under NFA. And if they DO ban their version of ‘assault’ rifle, that better include all those LEOs and other organizations too…
