American carnage
Another school massacre, another lack of answers
The slaughter Wednesday of 17 students and adult employees at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., by a former student, armed with a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, is a “one more time,” completely unacceptable event.
It is the 18th school shooting in the United States so far this year. What happened, what people’s reaction to it is, what the president and other political leaders say about it, is becoming largely routine. Thoughts and prayers are nice, but inadequate.
Our leaders have done basically nothing about this phenomenon. They don’t even talk about it much. It has been suggested that, if one wants to stem the tide of such murders, the issue can be addressed usefully from either the gun control or the mental health angle. Neither has occurred.
Armed guards at schools and churches, or armed teachers and pastors, isn’t going to do it, even if we could subdue our disgust at the idea of needing to take such action.
Is it not what government exists for, to tackle the problems the nation is experiencing? If our children being killed in schools and worshippers being killed in our churches isn’t a national problem, then what is?
Gun control is limited by the Second Amendment argument, although strict enforcement of national, state and local laws offers some room for progress. Department of Defense negligence in the November Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shooting demonstrates what can happen when existing laws aren’t enforced. Another argument says there are so many guns out there among the population that it is too late to do anything about it. Fatalism has never been an American characteristic and, although it perhaps took us 242 years to get to where we are in the proliferation of weapons among our population, it is never too late to start trying to solve the problem, one gun, one bullet, one device at a time.
It is also important to remember that the National Rifle Association is not a fresh-faced group of November squirrel hunters. It is heavily backed and financed by America’s gun industry, comprising companies interested almost entirely in selling weapons and accessories as widely as possible, with as little regulation as possible. There is thus, as we stand now, lots of room for people like the Parkland killer to arm himself with a military-level weapon, whatever his personal problems may be. Nikolas Cruz, 19, who police say has confessed to the shooting, was a severely troubled person. According to the leader of a white nationalist militia, Republic of Florida, Mr. Cruz was a member of the group and had trained in its paramilitary drills.
To tie the problem of killing in America’s schools and churches to resolution of our problem of inadequate mental health care is an evasion, a dodge, although it is a national need. The long, continuing battle royal over health care in America is bad enough without throwing the school and church murders issue into the middle of it.
The focus should be on taking action to avoid being a victim. The first step will be increased security at schools — more metal detectors, more barriers, more drills to teach students and staff to evade an active shooter, more methods to detect and deflect threats. School security will be based on preparing for the unthinkable — because it keeps on happening.