Exploring what can happen when people think for themselves.
From an article on the NBC news web site regarding the mass shooting at Pensacola Naval Base by Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a Saudi pilot here for flight training:
“They also said that although non-citizens are normally prohibited from buying handguns, Alshamrani used a loophole to legally purchase his weapon from a dealer in Pensacola. Non-citizens with hunting licenses can buy firearms, and the shooter apparently had such a license, sources said.”
Maybe we should work on that loophole, huh?
Active shooter drills are not about protecting our children; their purpose is to traumatize children and their parents so as to increase their fear of school violence. And it works: A Pew Research report indicates that the majority of students and parents are now concerned about the possibility of a school shooting, even though such events are quite rare.
A recent U.S. Secret Service study investigated targeted school violence – excluding gang and drug-related events or events with an external criminal nexus – during the 10 year period from 20o8 through 2017. They found 41 targeted school violence events – of which only 25 involved a firearm – accounting for 79 injured and 19 killed. Considering that the U.S. has more than 95,000 k through 12 schools serving almost 50 million students, death or injury from such events are truly rare. Compare these numbers to the 2364 teen drivers killed and 300,000 injured in 2017 alone; on which do you think we should be concentrating our efforts?
Given the rarity of these events, why do some schools terrorize parents and students with active shooter drills using fake blood, mock injuries and simulated shooters firing blanks? Could it be that the political agenda driving these active shooter drills is more important to some than actually protecting children? Could it be that these drills are simply anti-gun political propaganda aimed at current (parent) and future (student) voters, possibly to gain support for anti-gun legislation?
It’s time we stop using our schools and children as political pawns to undermine the 2nd amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Instead, let’s start working on truly effective programs to eliminate school violence. Threat assessment, as promoted by the Secret Service and discussed in this article from NPR, is a much more effective method of preventing school violence.
Some excerpts from the Secret Service study:
The odds are estimated at 11 million:1 that you’ll die in an airplane accident. Yet we don’t make fliers run through accident drills where body parts are flying, people are laying in pools of blood, and fire abounds. We simply explain to them how to prepare for an emergency landing and how to operate the emergency doors. No need to terrorize fliers; that will only make people afraid of airplanes.
The odds are estimated at 614 million:1 that you’ll die in a shooting at school (any shooting at school, not just a mass school shooting); that’s almost 56 times less likely than dying in an airplane accident. And yet we make students go through “active shooter” drills where fake blood, mock injuries and mask gunmen firing blanks are used to terrorize anyone who hasn’t already fainted.
Extreme? Of course it is. But you have to understand that those promoting such drills are not trying to prepare students for the unlikely event of a school shooter. No, instead they are preparing students (and their parents) for the voting booth. By building in them a fear of firearms they are assured of future votes for gun control.
I am appalled that gun control advocates would go to such extreme lengths for political purposes, but I am not surprised. With an education system that leans liberal by a 2:1 margin, schools have become a tool for the propagation of liberal tenets – and it’s a very effective tool. However, these active shooter drills are simply blatant acts of terror against our impressionable youth designed to insure compliance with long-term political goals. Experts are now claiming that these “active shooter drills” have gone too far and are likely to do more damage than good, particularly given the rarity of these events.
It’s time to put an end to the use of our children as political pawns. Demand that your districts provide suitable security for their students so as to remove the soft-target status of schools. In addition, insist that more appropriate and effective training is developed that does not cause as much trauma to students as the event they purport to prevent.
…you get a concealed carry permit in California:
Donor who gave $45K to elect sheriff got coveted gun permit from her office
It’s terribly sad when a young life is lost to violence, regardless of the implement used. However, given that so many will blame the gun, shouldn’t we be looking where this child obtained his before we start passing more laws?
… by the blatant misuse of children to produce this gun-control propaganda video:
Sandy Hook Promise releases graphic video on school shooting in new PSA
This video was made under the guise of protecting children, but in truth its only purpose is to rile the senses and gather support for gun control.
When irresponsible people killed thousands each year in alcohol-related traffic accidents, cities developed specialized DUI task forces and increased DUI criminal penalties to reduce the death toll; no one blamed the cars. When terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into buildings killing thousands, additional security along with metal detectors were placed in airports around the globe to protect travelers; no one blamed the planes. When schools were recognized as soft targets to be exploited by deranged gunman, the correct response is to mandate police protection for our schools. Guns should not be blamed just because the political goal of gun control is more important to some than the real goal of protecting students lives.
Children can be protected right now by placing armed police at schools. Data compiled from FBI UCR information shows that on average in the U.S. there is one police officer per approximately every 500 people. Why, then, are not some of these police officers assigned to each school, where several hundred or thousands of students amass each weekday? If a school as 2000 students, why are there not 4 officers assigned there to protect them?
The sad truth is that Sandy Hook Promise does not care about children; they are simply pawns. If they were truly concerned about the children then they would be lobbying instead to place security at schools, which would virtually eliminate school shootings. Unfortunately, it would also cost Sandy Hook Promise their most visible and valuable asset in their quest for gun control: children.
Restricting the rights of millions of law-abiding gun owners for the actions of the very few is short-sighted. Support instead protecting our children by advocating for police protection in schools.
Beto has started a firestorm by calling for the confiscation of AR-15 and other military-style “assault weapons”. However, his words are just the rhetoric of a demagogue intended to rally those less informed around his war cry. For Beto and others, it’s just a means to a political end.
The misuse of these firearms in highly-visible criminal activity – most notably mass shootings – is tragic. However, the highly-publicized nature of mass shootings exaggerates their role as a cause of death. For instance, nearly ten times as many people die each year in non-boating drowning accidents than are killed by rifles of any type, including “assault weapons”. In reality, these firearms have proven themselves to be useful tools for hunting, target shooting – and yes, self defense – but are rarely used in crime. Because of the disconnect between perception and reality regarding these firearms, it might be prudent to take a closer look at one of America’s favorite rifles.
Many liberal media outlets lament the inability of the CDC to “advocate or promote gun control”, as limited by the Dickey Amendment passed by Congress in 1996. There is good reason for this limitation: the CDC has expressed an anti-gun bias in their gun research (as seen in this CDC-assisted study; take a few minutes to read it FULLY and you’ll understand). This anti-gun bias tends to blame guns rather than identify root causes.
Part of the argument by the press for the CDC to perform this research is the realization that approximately 60% of all gun-related deaths are suicides (see below). The argument is that if the CDC were to blame guns (rather than the mental health conditions that lead to suicide), and if guns were then more strictly controlled (i.e. outlawed), then the majority of gun deaths would instantly be eliminated (which is true – in the same way that outlawing cars would eliminate drunk driving deaths). However, I find two serious issues with this idea: 1) the gun is a tool in suicide, it is not the cause; 2) why should the few crazy people in our society be the ones who decide which rights the rest of us can exercise?
Eliminating a right for 99.9935% of Americans for the actions of the other 0.0065% is like using dynamite to fish: it just isn’t right. I believe it would be more prudent to focus on identifying the conditions that lead to suicide, and then use this information to keep firearms out of the hands of those recognized as a danger to themselves or others.
Stop blaming guns for suicides; they are not the cause.
If any of us had resorted to gunfire over a simple physical altercation, we’d be in prison before the ink on the police report dried. But when an off-duty copy does the same, the blue wall goes up and we don’t even get his name.
I’ll be following this story closely:
Off-duty LAPD officer fired fatal shot in California Costco shooting