Student shooters, enablers at fault

THE MEDIA reported another school shooting … with 10 killed by a student shooter in a Texas high school. … The hard truth is that it’s not guns, but the student shooters and their enablers.

■ First, the students who do the shooting are responsible, and should be punished and treated appropriately. Students who commit crimes should be subject to the legal system. … Being charged with a crime instead of enrolled in an alternate program might have prevented (the Parkland High School shooting) because (the gunman) either could have been prevented from buying a gun or been confined in jail or a mental health facility.

■ Second, the parents and/ or friends who enable the shooters should bear some responsibility. Parents should know what their kids are doing and with whom. The Columbine shooters’ parents didn’t notice the sawed-off gun barrels in the bedroom and bomb components in the garage, and parents of other shooters permitted their kids to have guns in spite of warning signs.… Friends should inform parents, school authorities or police of threats of violence.

■ Third, schools should not continue to be “soft targets” — especially at a time of copycat shooters — but should at least have metal detectors and, better yet, police, armed security guards or qualified armed staff or teachers. The outcomes at the Great Mills, Md., Dixon, Ill., and Ocala, Fla., high schools were much better than at Florida’s Parkland High School when shooters were promptly confronted by an armed person.

■ Fourth, recent shootings have revealed failings in the national instant check background investigation system, and in mental health and law enforcement systems that need to be rectified to help prevent shootings.

■ Fifth, deal with facts rather than myths and untruths. The NRA is not responsible for school shootings or other gun violence — it’s the shooters and their enablers primarily, and defects in mental health and criminal justice systems secondarily.… DAVID LIVINGSTON Albuquerque