I wish I could find more time to write in this blog, even more I wish I wasn't always writing about a tragedy that is so horrific. Alas, here we go again.....
I have seen death, death does not bother me. The hardest part of my job as a police officer, the only part of my job that ever kept me up at night, was the horrors I saw visited upon children. Things I would not have believed possible until I saw them for myself. I do not miss that part of the job, and I still have nightmares about some of those calls. Unfortunately I am no longer surprised to see these incidents on the news. Saddened, yes, broken hearted for the families of those children, yes, surprised no. There is evil in this world, so horrible that it is beyond imagination, at least until you see it for yourself. Monsters are real ladies and gentlemen, pretending otherwise is nothing but wishful thinking.
Now is the time to mourn, to reflect on the lives of the victims. To support those who have lost, and begin the process of rebuilding. Now is NOT the time for rash actions, and calls for legislation one way or the other. I have heard left-wing nuts and right-wing extremists pose their solutions to this problem and I can't help but shake my head at the stupidity of it all.
Mr. President this is NOT the time to split the country over more legislation, this is a time to bring the country together in mourning and support for Newton.
Gun Control is not the answer. Some people are broken, they are just broken, and when they decide to do something like this they will find a way. I'm from Oklahoma, and we Oklahomans know better than most, guns are far from the only way to commit mass murder, they are also a long way from the most effective way to accomplish the goal of terror and mass murder. Around here we will never forget what two nut-jobs and a u-haul full of fertilizer can do. As terrible as this is, imagine how much worse it could have been. First, gun control won't take away the guns from anyone but the law abiding citizens. Second, even if you could somehow recall all of them and stop selling anymore, there are plenty other methods to commit mass murder, many of which are far more horrific. The instrument is not the issue it is the operator that must be addressed.
.....ahh that makes sense, then we should arm the teachers that would put an end to this. WRONG
Consider this, SWAT officers train countless hours in the use of special weapons and tactics, which can be applied in situations like this with reasonable success rates. REASONABLE (not perfect). Teachers are not police, they are not special forces (unless they are retired), they are NOT trained for that type of situation. Imagine you are a teacher in this school. Suddenly you are responsible for saving a classroom full of 26 kindergarten students. You have to keep track of them, keep them calm, and do what you can to keep them in, or get them to a secure location. Do you believe you can do that, and properly utilize a firearm to neutralize an attacker? 99.9% of gun owners can't even hit a head size non-moving target, while standing still, taking their time to aim, in a controlled environment, at 10 yards, with 100% focus on shooting anymore than 50% of the time. And you want to turn them loose in a school, full of children with a handgun or rifle? I think not. When dealing with an active shooter in an environment like that, especially a school, you must consider your backdrop 100% of the time. If you take a shot and miss, that bullet my penetrate the wall behind your target and strike a child on the other side. Could you live with that? Maybe you hit your target, but the round over-penetrates and upon exiting the attacker strikes a child, is it worth it? Teachers/Principals are not trained for that type of combat, nor should they be.
There is no one answer to the problem, the fact is some small portion of the population of the world, and by extension this country, are just broken. They are capable of terrible acts, we can't always diagnose, predict, or prevent them from carrying out these horrific crimes. The best we can hope for is to make sure we are as prepared as possible, so in the event we have a chance to stop it, we are able to act quickly and decisively to do so.
In my opinion, the first logical step is access control to the schools. I'm not talking about glass doors with buzzers. I mean good doors and windows, with ballistic glass. Limit the entrances and exits (of course emergency exits that only open out will be required for fire), use metal detectors, and have a police presence at all times observing access points. Limit access to the buildings to staff, students, and police ONLY. Have an atrium up front if needed for parents to meet with teachers/students if they must come into the building, but do not allow them access to the actual classrooms. We waste billions on social programs, welfare, unemployment etc, if you clean up a fraction of those programs you would have all the money you need to provide this in every public school in this country.
However, even this is not fool-proof, nothing is. Where there is a will there is a way, but this would go a long way towards making it more difficult to pull off this type of massacre, and at least give the schools a fighting chance to stop the next tragedy before it really begins.
Who is to blame? Well it seems clear the mother of the suspect knew he had severe mental issues. She told a former babysitter to never take his eyes off the boy, she went so far as to tell him not to go to the bathroom because that was too long to leave the child unsupervised. Clearly she did not get the help she needed, clearly she failed to secure her firearms properly knowing someone that disturbed would have access to them if she did not..... And clearly she paid the ultimate price, murdered by her son, with her own gun. Unfortunately her lack of action cost many other innocent people their lives. Hate her if you want to, but she's already dead better to save your energy.
Improvements in mental health diagnoses could also help, however how to treat someone who has committed no crime becomes a bit of an issue even if they are severely mentally unstable. My problem with this approach is that mental health diagnosis is highly subjective. There are no tests that are accurate 100% of the time, in the end it falls to the opinion of a human being to determine what diagnosis fits, if any. If you diagnose the suspects mental health condition early, do you lock him away, even though he has yet to commit a crime? At the very least you could have warned his mother, who I suspect knew anyway, that he was dangerous and must not have access to firearms, cars etc.
We are left with more questions than answers, and realizing that there are no definitive answers does not make us feel any better. As for me, I will do what I have always done. Hope for the best, but having seen the evil in this world, I will continue to train and prepare for the worst because I know, Monsters are real.
