Tag Archives: Parkland shooting

national news

‘Active shooter drills’? Really?

There once was an almost-quaint era in our schools.

Students conducted fire drills. Those of us who grew up during the Cold War went through drills where we would be instructed to duck under our desks in case the Soviet Union decided to launch nuclear missiles at us.

Today we are in a different time. Now our students are conducting “active shooter drills” in schools. Educators are instructing our children about what they do when someone unloads a firearm.

Welcome to 21st-century America? Good ever-lovin’ grief, man!

Today’s students are facing dangers I never recall giving an instant of thought back when I was a kid. Parkland, Fla., has joined a lengthening list of American communities that have been scarred by gun violence tragedy. Seventeen people died; more were injured. A former student is arrested and charged with premeditated murder and is being held without bail in jail.

I suppose you can say that our school systems mark the most graphic changes in our culture. We’re hearing now in the wake of the Parkland massacre about these active shooter drills. Oh, my!

Consider, too, how public school students are able now to attend their schools after giving birth to children. Schools have day care centers on campus for the babies who belong to students.

I remember quite vividly how it used to be. It was around 1966 at the high school I attended. A girl revealed she was pregnant; she was unmarried. Almost immediately, this girl disappeared from the face of the planet, moving somewhere far, far away … never to be seen or heard from again by her friends at the school we all attended.

It’s not that way these days. See what I mean?

So it is with active shooter drills in our schools.

They’re keeping track these days of on-campus shooting incidents throughout the United States. Here we are, a month and a half into 2018 and we’re on track to set some sort of unofficial record for these kinds of events. Some of them have produced no casualties. Others have been tragic, such as what occurred in Parkland, Fla.

The very idea that we have to teach our children about how to deal with active shooters sickens me to my core.

national news

Gov. Scott has it right: no guns for mental cases

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has it right.

“Everything’s on the table,” the Republican governor said on CNN in the wake of the latest horrifying school shooting. This one, in Parkland, Fla., left 17 people dead and nearly as many injured.

A 19-year-old former student at the high school is in custody and has been charged with 17 counts of “premeditated murder.”

So, what does the governor mean by “everything”? I’ll take a leap here and presume he means, um, everything. That means potentially tighter regulations, stricter laws regulating the purchase of guns.

Gov. Scott went today where the president of the United States declined to go in discussing gun violence and beginning a discussion about a legislative solution to curbing it.

He said at an impromptu press event immediately after the shooting that people with mental disorders had no business purchasing and owning a firearm, let alone an AR-15 assault rifle like the one used by the gunman in Parkland.

As CNN.com reported: “Everything’s on the table. I’m going to look at every way that we can make sure our kids are safe,” Scott told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday when asked if he was ready to commit to working on tightening gun restrictions in the state.

Well done, governor. I hope someone in the right places will heed your message.

national news

POTUS speaks to two of three critical issues

Donald J. Trump went on the air this morning to offer the stricken nation his deep condolences over the latest school massacre that killed 17 people in Parkland, Fla.

The president offered on behalf of the nation his love and support for the victims and their families. Their grief is borne by the entire nation, he said. “We are one American family,” said the president.

He spoke also correctly about the need to address mental health issues. The gunman who opened fire at the high school had been expelled from the school for disciplinary reasons. He reportedly had exhibited some warning signs that went unheeded by those who know him.

Indeed, we do need to heed these signs. We mustn’t let them go.

Trump also spoke to the compelling need to boost school safety. That, too, is important. As the president noted, parents must not worry about the safety of their children “when they kiss them goodbye” each morning.

School safety. Mental health. Those are valid and important issues.

The president, though, left one critical issue unaddressed this morning. He didn’t mention gun violence. He didn’t speak at all to the need to find ways to keep guns out of the hands of those who exhibit the warning signs that the alleged gunman reportedly did.

Trump vowed to take on the “difficult issue of mental health.” Fine. What about gun violence, Mr. President? When in the name of political sanity are our elected leaders going to take on that “difficult issue”?

I continue to believe there are ways to toughen requirements for legal firearms purchases without impeding Second Amendment guarantees that citizens have the right to “keep and bear arms.”

That, too, needs a nation’s attention. If only the president had started that discussion today.

national news

Only platitudes from POTUS?

I am going to offer a comment that might create some blowback from those who’ll think I am picking too many nits.

So … with that, I’ll offer this: When is the president going to demonstrate an instinct to say something other than “thoughts and prayers” when horrific tragedy strikes?

Seventeen people were shot to death today in a high school in Parkland, Fla. The shooter was arrested and will be charged with multiple counts of murder. School-related gun violence has gotten worse in the past year. Yet the president of the United States, Donald Trump, promised during his inaugural address that “this American carnage will stop right here and right now.”

It hasn’t stopped. Indeed, some have suggested it has worsened in the year since Trump became president. Don’t misunderstand me on this point: I am not blaming the president for the spasm of violence!

The man, though, stands behind the bulliest of pulpits. When events such as this occur, it normally becomes imperative for the nation’s head of state to speak candidly, emotionally and with conviction to his constituents.

When the gunman opened fire in 2012 in Newtown, Conn., killing 27 people — including 20 first- and second-graders — President Obama stormed into the White House press room and wept as he told us of his outrage at the horror that unfolded.

Donald Trump has a young son who still lives at home with his parents; he has grandchildren. Certainly at some level he must feel a sense of horror at what occurred today in Florida. Surely he must be able to articulate a sense of dread and terror and offer some words of comfort to the loved ones of those who perished today in Parkland, Fla.

We hear, though, via Twitter that the president extends his “thoughts and prayers.” Well, many of us appreciate that expression from the president — as far as it goes.

Thus, I am compelled to ask: Is that it?