On the heels of the tragic event at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL on February 14th, 2018 where 17 students and faculty were killed in a school shooting, many in the public, the media and the government have been locked in a battle over Gun Control. Should we increase background checks, stop all private sales, give more guns to teachers or guards at schools, ban the AR-15 or just ban all semi-automatic weapons?
The argument posed by the Left is that AR-15’s (and subsequently all semi-automatic rifles) are too dangerous to be in the hands of regular citizens and that school shootings occur because of the availability of guns. The Right has fought back against this citing the 2nd Amendment and unfortunately not bringing any viable solutions to the table (I don’t think arming teachers is the solution Trump, but there may be a better way).
First and foremost, we should cover the facts about Parkland that we know and what went wrong. The shooter arrived at the school a little after 12 p.m. where he then entered and began his horrific rampage. During the investigation, it was reported by CNN that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office had received 30 plus calls about the shooter with even the FBI receiving two serious tips about the shooters social media posts where he had stated he wanted to be a professional school shooter. The Broward office received multiple calls about this student getting violent with family and other students and faculty with the individual’s aunt calling insisting they temporarily seize his weapons. Students and faculty stated that he was known the be violent and aggressive. All of the warning signs were present with multiple opportunities to intervene, but nothing was done.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel defended his position and told CNN on February 25th that he used his due diligence and provided “amazing leadership” to his agency. He also claims there were only 23 calls about the individual or his brother, yet CNN also found this to be untrue as the police call records show upwards of 40 calls. He has also stated on CNN with Jake Tapper that he was unaware for multiple days post shooting that the officer who was armed and present at the school never went in. Israel has also been vocal on being allowed to detain those who make cyber threats. However, under Florida Statute 784.048 Section 1 Subsection C,
“Credible threat means a verbal or nonverbal threat, or a combination of the two, including threats delivered by electronic communication or implied by a pattern of conduct, which places the person who is the target of the threat in reasonable fear for his or her safety or the safety of his or her family members or individuals closely associated with the person, and which is made with the apparent ability to carry out the threat to cause such harm. It is not necessary to prove that the person making the threat had the intent to actually carry out the threat”.
The individual had posted at least two separate threats to shoot up a school using his real name. Authorities at the FBI received two tips about this with the official transcripts from one of the tipsters being published by the New York Times. This tip was reported to the FBI on January 5th, 2018. They were warned about the shooter just over a month before the shooting. In this transcript the tipster says, “And then just recently, now he has switched it to he wants to kill people. And he put that on his Instagram and about two days later, he took it off. Um, if you go to his Instagram pages you’ll see all the guns, he-he’s so into ISIS and, um, I-I’m afraid this is, so-something’s gonna happen". This tip was reported to the FBI on January 5th. Just over a month before the shooting.
In the aftermath, many are calling for increased background checks, which I see as one component of the potential solution. However, the shooter went through standard background checks and was able to purchase a weapon he should not have been allowed to have. So, the question becomes, “How do we catch bad people who do not have any prior history?”
One solution to tack on would be a mental health evaluation that must be done in order to purchase a firearm. This check could be used for an extended amount of time and would have to be renewed every few years. In the case of Parkland, it was not that the laws were not strong enough to keep the weapons out of the shooters hands; it was the Sheriff’s office who had multiple opportunities to intervene. The laws did not fail. The enforcement mechanism did.
One of the main concerns before and after Parkland was that gun violence is rising in the United States. In 2016, there were 38,658 deaths related to firearms alone according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). What the vast majority of the media does not focus on is that suicide is included under gun violence. The CDC records show that suicide made up nearly two-thirds (60.6%) of all gun violence deaths with 22,936 deaths in 2016. Homicide made up 38.1% resulting in 14,414 deaths and law enforcement intervention made up 1.3% with 510 deaths. Unintentional and undetermined cases resulted in 495 and 300 deaths respectively.
Obviously, any homicide or mass shooting is horrible, but the numbers do not lie. There would appear to be a serious mental health problem on the rise in the United States regarding suicide and mental illness as a whole. When over half of all the gun violence is people killing themselves, I would say it is way past time we start addressing the problem and getting treatment to those who are mentally ill. Those figures do not even include those who killed themselves by any other means. Nearly 45,000 killed themselves by any means in 2016 alone. Many if not all school shootings could be prevented if we openly addressed the mental health crisis in our country.
One thing I do not believe is helping is how much we shelter young children from the truth about guns, mental illnesses, drugs, etc. We know from the prohibition era that banning drugs like alcohol only increases the desire for it. The appeal of something that is taboo cannot be ignored. If you have a gun in your home, teach your children gun safety and that it should never be used on another human being unless they are defending themselves or others. You will feel more comfortable and so will they. An educated community is a safe community.
