by Monreale
The gun controllers are out in force but their suggestions,
whether sincerely held or just political fodder, are generally irrelevant or
unrealistic. First, the voters are not going to support draconian measures.
That's the voters, not the NRA. The NRA follows the voters.
We must begin with the fact that 350 million guns are already out
there. Even granting the impossible, "fixing" the Second Amendment,
the guns are still there. Ban "assault weapons?" Strengthen background
checks? Prohibit private party and gun show sales without running a check?
Limit the capacity of magazines? OK. California has done all these things for
years. It didn't prevent the San Bernardino mass shooting in 2015 (16
dead--semi-automatic rifle) and other less costly shootings.
In the last 25 years in the U. S., we've experienced 16 mass
shootings with 10 victims or more. Six involved AR-15 type rifles. Ten involved
other weapons, mostly handguns.
My point is not that such measures are worthless, simply that, by
and large, they amount to band-aids and are opposed by a great many
voters
Restrict gun sales to the mentally ill? I'm not sure how many mass
shootings can be attributed to the mentally ill--a minority, I suspect, but
this idea bears examination. Of course, it would be very hard to administer.
How do we make fine distinctions between, say, the temporarily depressed and
those who are genuinely mentally ill? We are dealing with Constitutional rights
here. And as we saw just recently, under extreme pressure from the advocates
for the handicapped and the ACLU, Trump rescinded Obama's midnight hour attempt
to address the mentally ill.
I agree with Florida Governor Rick Scott. The "see something,
say something" mandate is most important, and the FBI's failure to
properly deal with a very good and specific tip is inexcusable. The Director of
the FBI should resign.
Beyond that, to me the most incredible fact about the Parkland
school shooting is that the security guard they had on hand was unarmed! Some head or heads should roll for this fatally stupid
error.
That brings me to the most important thing we could do about mass
shootings in schools and elsewhere.
Israel has more experience with attempts to kill its civilians
than any other Country. The Palestinians are ever present. What Israel does,
then, is to employ trained, armed security guards in every venue deemed at
risk, including schools. It works. We use security guards to protect money in
banks, to protect merchandise in malls. If I had young children, I would not
place them in a school that lacked trained, armed security guards.
The argument that so-called "gun free zones" are where
the greatest danger lies has merit. The 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting took
place in a "gun free zone." The only one with a gun was the murderer.
If a few of the thousands who attended that event had been carrying .45 or .357
magnum pistols, the shooter would have been put down long before he killed 58
innocents.
