Don’t even bother to say something ridiculous like, “It’s not supposed to happen here … ” No, it’s not supposed to happen anywhere, but it does, with sickening frequency.
And on a horrible Wednesday — Valentine’s Day — it happened in South Florida. There was yet another mass school shooting, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County.
The shooter was identified as Nikolas Cruz, 19, who is in custody. Cruz is a former student at the school kicked out for disciplinary reasons. He obviously held a festering grudge. He came back to take revenge Wednesday. He somehow gained entry, armed with a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle and an abundant supply of magazines.
This is the nation’s fourth-worst school shooting — ironically at a school whose name pays tribute to a woman who made us pay attention to the beauty of the Florida Everglades. The seventh school shooting in the United States — this year. Surprised? That’s because these tragedies have become so commonplace that they are not headline news anymore.
This one made the headlines. The carnage: at least 17 dead, more than 20 wounded. Broward’s deadliest mass shooting in history and the second in just more than a year since the five passengers were killed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Those are just the cold stats. The extent of the human suffering will bring some to their knees. The promising young lives snuffed out in a day at school, of all places. Teachers killed trying to protect students. Parents, grandparents, siblings, friends had their lives changed forever. Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi flew to Broward on Wednesday night to console those affected.
The state will pay for all the victims’ funerals, but who knows if, in the future, lawmakers with a brain will have to beat back misbegotten efforts to allow guns on, say, college campuses? We’ve already been there. There’s no guarantee we won’t be there again.
Questions abound. But there won’t be easy answers. Is there a gun law that could have prevented this tragedy? Could we have kept that AR-15 out of the hands of a troubled 19-year-old? Could a mental health program eased his anger? Shouldn’t kids who saw the shooter’s frightening, weapon-worshipping Instagram account have said something?
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, called the suspect “an animal.” Of course, he hasn’t voted for any gun-control legislation since the killings at Sandy Hook in Connecticut.
So it’s equally ridiculous to ask: When will this nation get serious about gun control? If 20 schoolchildren shot dead in 2012 didn’t move Congressional lawmakers to push through some sort of common sense on gun ownership, it’s unlikely the Parkland massacre will move them beyond thoughts and prayers, either.
Predictably, there will be outrage as we find out how easily the suspect got his hands on a rifle; local, state and federal lawmakers will either blame, or not blame, our gun culture; others will say guns had nothing to do with it, it’s a mental health issue. If — big if — legislation results, it will die, thanks to the sway, and deep pockets, of the National Rifle Association. Mass shootings in New Hope, San Diego, Orlando and Las Vegas have netted zero gun laws.
Then there’s this question: How long will our leaders, after offering up thoughts and prayers, continue to say, with their inaction, “Oh well?”
— Miami Herald
The idea that some kind of “common sense” progressive-fascist diktat is going to eliminate evil, stop evil people from doing evil violence against innocent victims, is delusional and dangerous.
Meaningful self defense is a human right.
When seconds count, police are minutes away.
Hopefully some nut job will eventually blow your brains out.
Or better yet, your loved ones.
Then maybe just maybe you will pull your brainless head out of Trumps fat a$$.
But I doubt it.
There is no hope for a $hithole like you.
I appreciate seeing such a rational, well-thought-out response that indicates a high level of critical thinking skills.
And yet you only coment on my post.
Nothing said to any other poster nor any reply as to what could be done.
Perhaps maybe another paid by Russia Troll?
“Any other poster”? You mean the ONE other poster? Well, two things: First, I didn’t know there was a requirement that I post a reply to EVERY single poster in a thread, and 2. I didn’t have anything to add or comment about that other poster’s post.
The increased security solution is slightly complex, so it doesn’t lend itself to a couple of sentences like your solutions of “no guns” or “no insane people” fantasies which could never be implemented. Security has the best chance of success, and has been proven so in locations where schools were previously common targets. 98.6% of all “mass public shootings” since 1950 have occurred in “gun-free zones”. It seems rather obvious. Obama’s kids at school were protected by agents with fully automatic weapons not just outside the school, nor inside the school, but also inside the classroom. I now they are more important than your kid or my kid, but still… one armed person in a school with 3,200 pupils. I hope you can see the “fail” written into that policy.
How about we don’t let 19 year olds burly AR15s?
Simple hey?
Do you have any video links you could share showing 19-year-olds “burlying” AR-15s? I’m just curious.
Maybe you meant “buy”? It’s difficult to keep track of all your misspellings and grammatical errors. So what age would be the “proper” age to allow people to own any firearms, or is it just AR-15s you want to impose a minimum age on? Please explain which firearms you would and wouldn’t have subject to age limitations and why.
Or do you want to impose a ban on the sale of any firearm to anyone of any age who used said firearm to commit a crime. The Vegas murderer used at least one AR-15. He was 65 years old. No sales to 65 year olds? Or no sales to anyone under 66? Please explain and include the logical principle underlying your proposed law, given that the percentage of AR-15 owners aged 19 who use those firearms in crimes is somewhere around .000001 percent of the owners.
Do you think it equitable that someone may join the military and be trained you use weapons capable of greater harm than an AR-15 and yet not be allowed to own one in their private life? Explain that to us.
Etc.
Once yet again, another verbose endless dribble of sheer and utter nonsense
Either one is part of the solution or part of the problem.
I see you desire to be the problem.
One can not debate with an idiot who lives in fear and is blinded by ignorance, stupidity and greed
So, how many more retorts of your inane babble must we endure?
And in this case, ONE 19 year old able to buy an AR-15 is one too many.
If you take your head out of your fat wide open a$$ you might see something more than the &hit it is you truly are.
You are truly, indeed, an eloquent spokesperson for you policy positions. Whatever they are besides not allowing a particular 19 year old to buy a particular weapon.
Why don’t you answer any of the (obvious) questions about your (obviously fallacious) policy suggestions?
Here, I’ll make it even easier for you: Tell us exactly what criteria people would have to meet in order to purchase particular types of firearms.
Verbose nonsense.
Ignorant justifications is all you can manage to spew
Yeah, yeah… “verbose” etc.
I see you aren’t capable of providing any responses at all dealing with the actual subject matter. I wonder why?
You have not offered one justifiable example of stopping anything.
Just justifications for allowing it to continue
Just babble – form an idiot incapable of thinking
For the third time: increased security. Israeli example. Other programs exist and have been successfully implemented. Proven results.
What don’t you get about that? What is a “justifiable example”?
Oh, and thank you for proving my points. Keep it up. Good work.
Here is where you prove beyond any doubt that you are noting but a paid for Trump/Russian Troll:
I quote you:
“Obama’s kids at school were protected by agents with fully automatic
weapons not just outside the school, nor inside the school, but also
inside the classroom.”
And yet, not one mention of the orange haired baboons family – who gets the exact same protection – to a much much larger family – at a much more greater cost than Obama.
Shut up you $hithole Trump a$$ kissing Troll.
Trump has never advocated that individual ordinary law-abiding citizen either be disarmed of certain weapons nor denied the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Obama did, yet he himself and his family didn’t have such concerns because he had armed protection paid for by taxpayers. In other words, (I guess I have to spell everything out for you), Obama was/is a hypocrite.
No, Trump just let mentally disturbed people buy guns.
I understand what you are.
A racist bigoted fat white slob republican idiot with a mantra of repeating the same babble over and over and over and over.
Trump does not even qualify to be equal to the sweat off Obama’s balls.
But you just love licking the sweat off the orange haired baboons ball sac all day long.
And that makes you the clear true idiot you show yourself to be.
As well as being bought and paid for by Russia.
I do think scum $hitholes the likes of you have met your match with what happened in Florida last week.
I guess you didn’t bother to actually read the law. No surprise there. There are already laws for dealing with people who are adjudicated to be “a danger to themselves or others”. It’s called “arrest”. Then trial or plea bargain. Then conviction or acquittal. Then release or confinement in prison or a mental health facility. But don’t let facts stop you.
What exactly do you see as the problem(s) with increased security, including arming trained school personnel? Please be specific. There, that’s at least the fourth time I’ve put forward a plan that has been proven to work and I suspect you will once again provide no substantive answer.
Do you really somehow in some way believe that all the name-calling serves your purpose? Though I have to wonder what your “purpose” is. I’m fairly certain that no one who disagrees with you (whatever you policy positions are besides stopping particular types of rifles being sold to 19-year-olds, aren’t affected in the slightest by your name-calling. It does prove something though.
The $hitholes offered a prayer.
Enough said.
I find it odd, (not really), that the writer(s) of the above editorial didn’t simply list for us, in detail, exactly the wording of the “commonsense gun control” law(s) that would have prevented the Parkland murders.
How hard could that be? Why don’t any of these people proposing the “gun control” fixes ever tell us exactly what the law is, and how it will be enforced successfully against people with evil intent. The person responsible for Parkland broke the laws against “gun-free school zone”, assault, and murder. What other/new law would he have obeyed?
Anything is better than a prayer.
Why not be the first to offer a suggestion?
See the above security suggestions, as per Israel, etc.
Perhaps not selling guns to people with clear mental issues is a great start.
But no, you guys got the orange haired baboon to overturn that measure.
People with adjudicated mental incapacity are already in the “prohibited person” class and will be found ineligible to purchase firearms requiring a background check.
I’m not sure if you are really that ignorant, or only parroting the talking points, but the Obama order (which he curiously only decided to enact after seven years and 11 months in office) rescinded by Trump was one that denied rights to people who had a fiduciary assistant (to handle financial issues). The Obama order was opposed by the ACLU, and the National Council on Disabilities, and the National Consortium for Mental Health Recovery, hardly organizations that could be claimed to be in the pocket of the NRA.
Very verbose reply that offers nothing of substance.
Thanks for you judgment about verbosity. Very substantive, like your other posts. You’ll have to see if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I don’t have the ability like you do to reduce everything to an ad hominem insult or label everything I disagree with “$hithole”. Perhaps you could share with us what particular school or school system taught you your debate, critical thinking and general language skills?
The substance (I guess you can’t read or comprehend or both): 1. You are ignorant or lying about the ability of mentally impaired people to purchase firearms. 2. You are lying or ignorant about the Obama executive order re fiduciary assistance being a disqualifying condition that Trump rescinded. You think the ACLU, NCD, and NCMHR are in the NRS’s pocket? I noticed no comment from you about that… or anything else for that matter.
You think typing 1,000 words of sheer utter nonsense makes you smart, brighter, more informed that the rest.
It does not.
All you are rehashing over and over is that its not a fixable situation.
Why then, does ONLY America find itself in this situation?
HJ Res 40 – suggest you read it. Perhaps maybe you can become and educated person at some point other than the $hithole spewing garbage idiot your endless dribble shows you to be.
But I doubt it.
You will be back, with another 1000 word plus diatribe of $hithole regurgitated nonsense – as that’s all you know
Now we can see that you can’t count either. I should have known. “1,000 words”? Not even a little bit close.
Another one of your content-free posts. Except to point out that a bill passed by the House and the Senate (including Democrats voting for it in both chambers) undid Obama’s last minute order. All you need to do is elect a different House, Senate, and President and maybe then you’ll be happy. Obama was there for eight years, including the first two with control of both the House and the Senate. What “gun control” laws did he pass then? That’s right: none. Why?
I’ve pointed out proven policies that have worked in other places, and have asked you numerous questions about the policy you’ve advocated, yet you refuse to answer one single question, or provide any constructive commentary at all… you just name-call. Is that your idea of solving a problem?
endless babble from a paid for Trump/Russian Troll
Wow. You are so smart. How did you figure out that I was a paid “Russian Troll”? I should have known you to be of such astounding intellect based upon all your responses in this thread. One question: I seem to be missing all the payments. Any idea where I can find them? Oh, well, and I’m not Russian. I guess you’ll get Mueller after me now to “prove” I am. Good luck!
You give yourself away so easily
Ignorance spewing ignorance while claiming intellect.
Have fun at church tomorrow praying to your fake “god”
The solving of all of this will being in the 2018 elections and end in 2020 – when the majority of non republicans will be less that 10%
“the majority of non republicans will be less that 10%”.
Could you try re-writing that in a way that actually has a meaning in commonly understood English?
Learn comprehension
Again, I quote you:
“Except to point out that a bill passed by the House and the Senate
(including Democrats voting for it in both chambers) undid Obama’s last
minute order”
You should go back and look up the vote count by party in the House and Senate.
Again, just because you think it, or see it on the internet, it may or may not be true.
In your case, you have no clue as to what is true or fake.
Because you support an orange haired $hithole baboon as your potus.
Maybe he can get laid tonight in Florida.
I see you must have “punched out” at the Troll Bot Factory for the night!
Or how about we post 2 dozen sharp shooters at every school and just take out anyone who looks like a potential threat?
Like how they do it in Russia.
1. I see you have nothing to offer as a specific concrete suggestion.
2. There are plenty of suggestions being made on public sites by many people who have familiarity with both security in general and security in schools. One possible approach is that followed by Israel which instituted a policy of arming school staff that led to a drastic reduction in attacks on schools. It doesn’t require “two dozen sharpshooters” to dramatically decrease the number of attempted armored car, bank and gun store robberies, and wouldn’t be required for schools once the “gun-free zone” no longer existed.
And here is the best part of your failed “opinion”
This wimp, this pure scum bag, who has now been proven to dance around with the trademark Trump “Make America Great Again” hat, the guy who posted on on line chats his hatred for any one “different” from himself and yes, who clearly had mental health issues, but each and every “way” your lunacy that is screamed about daily – “see something, report it” was done. Over and over and over and over.
Nobody did anything.
Then he goes and kills 17 perfectly innocent people.
And, like the spineless wimp he is with his spineless beliefs, he runs away.
And then, now, arrested and in court – tells lawyers he will plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.
The wimp, fueled by YOUR same beliefs, brags and brags about killing everyone on social media, calls himself a “school shooter” kills 17 innocent people and HE wants to be able to LIVE – even if in jail for the rest of his life.
Hopefully a very very very long life. Spent doing nothing but breathing.
Sorry, but your “right to life” platform has to be much more than no abortions and no death penalty for convicted murders.
I am quite sorry, I am sure you can and will find Obama responsible.
And yet, we see today, the orange haired baboon $hithole smiling and “thumps up” at the hospital in Florida.
And I bet that gives you a nice big proud smile!
YAHWEH’S MINISTRY, LINCOLN PARK, HILO, HAWAII https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f2b6b2de5868c4873a8a02033fb2e4deb18895e979fd5a4215b195ceee383fe0.jpg