Many on the Left were certainly hoping to use last week’s school shooting to push for more gun control (there’s even been talk of a “semiautomatic weapons ban,” which would essentially outlaw the vast majority of rifles and handguns in circulation today).
But as the facts come out about this tragedy, it’s more and more clear that anger — and an insistence on maintaining the right to self-defense — is far more appropriate. To summarize:
- Local police had been called to alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz’s residence 39 times over the previous seven years, with the Broward County Sheriffs involved in 23 of them.
- The Broward County Sheriff has admitted his department did not follow standard protocols regarding such a recurring residence, and two deputies are under investigation in that regard.
- The FBI says it also failed to follow protocols after being warned in January about Cruz — one of two such warnings it received.
- During the event, Cruz was able to leave the school undetected because officers were watching security video they thought was live but had been rewound more than 20 minutes. As much as I try not to use it, all I can say to this is WTF?
- And to top it all off: there was an armed, uniformed sheriffs deputy assigned to the high school as a resource officer who never entered the building or engaged the shooter during the entire massacre!
The Broward County Sheriffs Department released that last item Thursday morning, right after the previous evening’s CNN “Town Hall” on the event, during which Sheriff Scott Israel puffed his chest and pointed fingers at Dana Loesch and the National Rifle Association, as though the failures listed above are somehow their fault. Sheriff Israel had to have known of his officers’ failures even as he preened for the cameras!
Given all the above, public school teachers would be justified in refusing to work until/unless they are given permission to be trained and armed. These data points starkly illustrate the truth of the adage “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” The gunfire lasted four minutes. Time that on a clock, and while the timer’s running, imagine being a teacher or teenager in a closet hearing gunfire the whole time… with no effective way to fight back. While a armed veteran officer cowered outside the school, a 15-year old JROTC cadet died holding a door for fellow students to escape (one of three cadets to die that day), others quickly thought to use kevlar mats to protect their classmates, and a beloved coach, with no weapon available to him, died shielding his students with his own body.
This entire event is best summarized by a military acronym whose use I also keep to a minimum: FUBAR. I’ve really, really tried not to entertain theories that mass shootings are a conscious tool of people who want to disarm us, but such a complete and catastrophic failure makes that increasingly difficult. It doesn’t help the government any that one of the most prominently featured students with various media is the articulate son of an FBI agent. There’s also the fact that four months after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history (in Las Vegas), the authorities are either still clueless about what happened and why, or are simply refusing to tell the public anything.
The Left wants us to be angry, and I am.
I’m angry that government at every level utterly failed to recognize and act on a wealth of threat information about Cruz.
I’m angry that the information was not routed in such a way as to prevent Cruz from purchasing his weapons (the entire POINT of a background check!).
I’m angry that a veteran officer (with enough time to qualify to retire) did NOTHING as 17 people died around him.
I’m angry that only the resource officer has had the sense of shame enough to resign (although he stands to collect his retirement). While there have been public calls for people to be fired, recent history doesn’t lend much confidence anyone with real authority will be held accountable.
I’m angry that institutions such as the FBI are more focused on political witch hunts than they are actual protection of citizens.
I’m angriest that all of this is being exploited emotionally to try to further restrict our means of self-defense, even as it becomes apparent we cannot count on anyone else to take care of it for us. There’s not a law or restriction that could have solved the failures listed above, and I don’t intend to pay for somebody else’s abdication of responsibilities.
The Bible cautions us “in your anger, do not sin.” I don’t think it’s a sin to warn the gun-grabbers they don’t know the fire they’re playing with. In the same passage we’re told not to give the devil an opportunity. The history of firearm confiscations would seem to show it’s just that – a grave opportunity for evil. So I’ll conclude with a phrase that’s being seen more and more these days:
A True Progressive 