The Nosler forum is another forum that I frequent and like this one it seems to have a good bunch of folks who visit this site. One of the gentlemen who goes by the Handle of Dr. Mike wrote this on the shooting and I asked him if I could share his thoughts. I thought it was very well written and meaningful to read.
Without question, this is a tragic situation. It could have been much worse, except for a few fortuitous matters. The hurricane glass installed in the building appears to have stopped a number of additional deaths when the gunman couldn’t break the glass. Had that occurred, he would have been able to shoot many more people. He was prepared to do so, if the number of fully loaded magazines is any indication. JROTC members acted courageously to exercise control, directing students out of the danger zone and to shield others from rifle fire with Kevlar curtains. These young men need to be recognised for their courage and for their leadership.
One must feel compassion for grieving families and for wounded people who struggle to recover. What must be avoided is reacting solely from emotion and ignoring knowledge. Unfortunately, it appears that many students, having been trained in the art of following their emotions are prepared to jettison reason. Candidly, no one should surrender reason to teens, regardless of how traumatised they may have been. There is a reason why we withhold the privilege of voting until there is a presumed level of maturity. We presume (wrongly, perhaps, but presumptive nevertheless) that age does confer the ability to engage in sober reflection.
The answer is not to engage in kneejerk reaction such as banning guns and condemning the NRA. That is what we have come to expect from contemporary society. A bit of rational thought will remind us that Israel and Switzerland have high levels of firearm availability, and they don't have high numbers of mass shootings. The sole exception to this is the response of Israeli society to Palestinian efforts to inflict mass casualties, which have been greatly curtailed, in great measure because the attackers keep getting killed. China has incredibly strict gun laws, and there are mass stabbings that occur with somewhat amazing regularity. Either of these situations should challenge people to think. Access to firearms is not the sole issue to account for mass killings.
North American society has been trained for over a generation to respond to feelings rather than facts. The students that are demanding government to “do something” are making their demands from a position of fear, rather than from a position of knowledge. Three hundred thousand Americans are killed each year by abortion; but the same people demanding that guns be restricted “for the children” don’t seem especially concerned about demanding an end to the murder of the most vulnerable among us. For instance, Kamala Harris tweets that “our babies are being slaughtered,” though she received over $40,000 from pro-abortion rights groups in 2016. During 2016-2017, 24 children were killed in school shootings, including the Parkland shooting. That is 24 too many, but shouldn’t she be concerned for the over 300,000 babies killed by abortion each year? Over 900 deaths on an average day is mind boggling, but shouldn’t there be some concern about that?
The mass murders seem always to be perpetuated in “gun free zones,” but few of those excoriating the NRA consider that there are steps that could make it more probable that a shooter would be killed if he/she pulled a gun there.
We continue to be urged that if we “see something, say something.” In this case, brave people did speak up, just as they did in other cases—and nothing happened. The father of convicted Chelsea bomber Ahmad Khan Rahimi informed the FBI of his concerns. Nothing was done and 31 people were wounded. The FBI was warned of the Tsarnaev brothers; but nothing was done and the Boston Marathon bombing took place. A school shooting in New Mexico left two students dead—after an FBI investigation had cleared the shooter! And Nikolas Cruz had multiple red flags presented to the FBI and the Florida DCF; but nothing was done. Clearly, taking these matters seriously would go a long way toward addressing the problems.
I cannot neglect the issue that a major problem in modern life is a cultural transition. We had guns when I was a teen. We took them to school and nobody would think of using them to injure another. Every pickup had a gun rack in the back window—and there were guns on those racks. Guns didn’t change, but society did change. Parents began to imagine that buying “things” was more important than being with children, so both parents went to work. Children needed their mom and dad, but instead they came home to an empty house filled with “things.” We told women that they could be both mothers AND fathers. So, we raised a generation without dads in the home. Just as juvenile bull elephants that don’t have adult bulls to keep them in line become rogue, so we raised a generation with an exaggerated number of rogue children that suffer from an alphabet soup of problems that never existed in earlier generations.
In an earlier day, if I misbehaved (and I did misbehave) before I could even get home, my dad would know of my misadventures. The neighbours would never permit a child to run wild. Today, those same neighbours will be told to keep their opinions to themselves. I was warned, and the warnings had some validity attached, that if I was punished at school, then I could anticipate punishment when I got home. Today, we don’t dare even speak harshly to the precious snowflakes, or their otherwise absent parents will sue the socks off us.
We don’t want to offend adherents of some religions, so we are silent concerning their rantings. However, we feel perfectly free to censure such nationally destructive acts as prayer or reading the Good Book. We once stood for the national anthem and knelt for prayer; that has changed today. Could it be that such societal transformation is in part responsible for what we are observing among our youth? Seems that I recall a censure that charged a nation with sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.
I understand that I’m a dinosaur, and I was a nervous child. However, my dad was even more nervous and he was an expert in the use of an elm switch. He didn’t hesitate to administer the board of education to the seat of knowledge, and I learned that he meant to turn out a son that would honour him rather than one that would disgrace him.
I’ve rambled on, I’m well aware. I have to speak to a congregation each week and the messages are broadcast. It is fascinating to witness the feedback. I’ve been threatened by station managers that I speak too plainly, even as they privately admit they appreciate what is said. If someone is offended by what I’ve written, know that I’ve been to a few rodeos, and I’ve likely heard your particular complaint. I’ll simply say to you what I have heard so often when those whom I represent (white, male, Anglo-Saxon, Christians) are told to simply turn off what may offend us, you can simply block my posts. Believe me, I will understand. However, you need to understand that the blowback from this incident in Florida will not quickly dissipate. We will witness a tremendous push to ban “assault rifles” (whatever they are) and to restrict gun rights. Tragically, that blowback will come all the way to the great white north.
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γηράσκω δ᾽ αἰεὶ πολλὰ διδασκόμενος.
