Common Sense Concerning School Shootings

What’s the first thing you hear after every mass shooting? “Congress needs to do something!” But what is that “something” Congress should do? Congress can only pass laws. What laws should those be? There is no law or combination of laws that would stop school shootings. Even if Congress managed to repeal the Second Amendment, there are almost 400 million guns in the U.S. The only thing that would happen is that there would be even more guns in the hands of criminals.
 
Everyone in the nation is upset. I get that. Everyone is frustrated because there are no viable answers. I get that, too. Most of all, everyone wants someone to blame. I fully understand that.
 
So everyone drags out their tired, old mantras.
 
Democrats: “We need more gun laws.” “We need reasonable gun laws.” “We need common-sense gun laws.” Notice that they attempt to portray what they want as “common-sense” to appeal to the average Joe. But also notice what they don’t say. They’re not proposing anything specific. Just more gun laws. When we already have hundreds of gun laws on the books, what are they really saying? They want NO guns in  America. But if we stopped all legal gun sales of every kind to any person, criminals would still be able to obtain guns. So more gun laws - or even a complete gun ban - would not solve the problem.
 
Republicans: “The problem isn’t guns, it’s mental health.” “We have to deal with the mental health epidemic in this country.” The problem is that if we rounded up every person who had ever had a mental health problem, every person who had ever gone to a psychologist or other counselor, and every person that a family member or friend thought was crazy, we would still have mass shootings. Because many of the people who do these things are not crazy; they are just plain old evil. So if we completely solved the problem of mental health in the U.S., we would still have mass shootings.
 
So, what’s the answer? Actually, there are two answers. The first is spiritual. I will be addressing that next week. The second is practical. We need to protect our students. The answer is so simple that it’s amazing to me that everyone isn’t lining up to secure our schools. It’s sensible – which is probably why the politicians don’t like it. They like to posture and bloviate and they LOVE to hear themselves talk. But when they both want the same thing, one or the other party will oppose it.
 
Consider this. Filthy-mouthed rappers who advocate the rape of women and the assassination of police have armed guards. Big, strong NFL football stars have armed guards. Our politicians are surrounded by armed guards. But our children are not considered worthy of the same protection.    
 
And consider this. Almost every public building in almost every city is covered up with armed security. You cannot enter a county, state or federal courthouse or office building without going through a metal detector and being ID’d and screened. Shouldn’t our schools have metal detectors, perimeter security, and at least roving armed guards? Judges insist that they have armed guards in every courtroom. I know the government won’t put a guard in every classroom, but wouldn’t it be nice to at least have one nearby? Do our children deserve less than politicians, celebrities, and judges?
 
Let me take a few minutes to burst some of the many lies that have flooded the airwaves since the Parkland shooting. As I do, think about how many times you have heard these lies in just the first two days following the tragedy. The Liberal politicians and media know the power of repetition. They know that if they tell the same lie again and again and again, even people who know the truth will start to believe the lie. My own daughter thought that the AR-15 was a fully automatic Assault Rifle – even though she has been trained in gun nomenclature and has fired weapons at a range.
 
The AR-15 is NOT an “Assault Weapon”

First, the “AR” in AR-15 does not stand for Assault Rifle, as most of the dishonest politicians and fake news media have been saying. It stands for ArmaLite Rifle (named after the original manufacturer who developed it in the 1950’s). For over 60 years it has been used safely by both hunters and sports shooters. Many homeowners own them for home protection. Farmers and ranchers use them to deal with dangerous “critters.”
 
Slick Willie Clinton and his Democrat cronies managed to ban what they called “assault weapons” – including the AR-15 – in 1994. During the 10 years before the law was repealed, there was NO evidence of a decline in gun violence or homicides. In other words, this “common-sense” gun law did absolutely nothing.
 
The Democrats claim the AR-15 is an “Assault Weapon” and that no real hunter would ever use one out in the woods. They know that’s a lie, but they keep on saying it. The fact is that Winchester, Remington, Browning, and just about every other major manufacturer of rifles have an AR-15 product.
 
Search the Internet for “Top 10 most popular hunting rifles.” Every list will contain several different brands of AR-5 style rifles. So just what is the difference between an AR-15 style rifle and your grandfather’s hunting rifle that used to hang over the mantle? Very little.
 
They both serve the same function. Of course, some hunters use bolt-action rifles of the type used in World War I. And some use shotguns. But most hunting rifles sold these days are semi-automatic weapons – just like the AR-15. The real difference is cosmetic. The traditional-style rifle looks like your grandfather’s rifle. The AR-15 looks like a military rifle. But the similarity stops there.
 
The liars like to call AR-15’s “assault weapons” and falsely portray them as “automatic weapons” and “weapons of war” just because they look cosmetically like military rifles. Gun expert David Keene says, “In fact, they are semi-automatic firearms that are designed and built not for the military, but for the civilian market and function differently than their military counterparts. Were our soldiers outfitted with ARs, they would be at the mercy of every army in the world.”
 
“But Tom, don’t all the criminals and mass shooters use AR-15’s”? No. In fact, these guns are NOT favored by U.S. criminals or killers. The FBI found that in 2010, the last year for which data is available, more people were beaten to death than killed with all long guns including these so-called assault weapons. Who do you think is lying – the FBI or the Democrats?

More than eight million Americans own AR-15’s They must wonder about the sanity of the Liberal politicians and media, who clearly have no clue about these guns. They’re not cheap, but they are the best-selling rifles in the country – and have been for many years. Millions of Americans didn’t buy them because they looked cool – or because they want to kill fellow Americans. They bought them because they are good guns, and practical for the purposes for which they were purchased.
 
The AR-15 is the most commonly used rifle for marksmanship training and competition. Here’s a profile of these “assault weapon” purchasers according to Keene: “Nearly 90% of those who own an AR-15 use it for recreational target shooting; 51% of AR owners are members of shooting clubs and visit the range regularly. The typical AR owner is not a crazed teenage psychopath, but a 35+ year old, married and has some college education.”
 
Part of the popularity of this weapon is that it is a semi-automatic civilian version of the automatic machine rifle used by our military men and women. About 50% of AR-15 owners are vets, police officers – or both. It’s configured like the weapon they are familiar with and enjoy shooting. Keene says that his daughter served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. And she only owns one gun – an AR-15. I think we can trust our military vets and police to know the difference between a civilian rifle and an assault weapon, don’t you?

 



The AR-15 is NOT an “Automatic Weapon”

The politicians should know the weapon used by the Parkland shooter isn't an automatic weapon. So why do they call it that? It's because they're liars with an agenda. I'm tired of their lies, and I'm calling them on it. I dare any of them to try to justify their lies.

What is an automatic weapon? It's any weapon that allows the owner to pull the trigger once and hold it until all the bullets are discharged. The AR-15 cannot do that. It is a semi-automatic weapon.

What is a semi-automatic weapon? It is a weapon that fires one bullet every time you pull the trigger. Sounds scary, right? Almost every police officer you see carries a semi-automatic weapon - not in the trunk of his car, but on his hip.

"Do you mean a cop's service pistol is the same as an AR-15?" Yep. Only it's shorter, and therefore not as accurate. That's why hunters - yes, hunters - like the AR-15's.

"But I've heard Democrats all day long saying that this is a super-dangerous weapon and not something that hunters would use." Rule #1 for understanding anti-Second Amendment zealots: They're liars. "But they're saying that the only use for an AR-15 is to kill masses of people." See Rule #1.

Revolvers (the old “six-gun”); semi-automatic pistols such as most police carry; and semi-automatic rifles (such as the AR-15): all fire at the same rate of speed – as fast as the user can manually pull the trigger.

A typical user can fire 12 to 15 rounds per minute from an AR-15. By contrast, the fastest handheld machine guns can fire up to 100 rounds per minute – almost ten times as fast as the AR-15. And the fastest mounted machine guns can fire up one million rounds per minute. Can you appreciate that there is a world of difference between a semi-automatic weapon and a fully automatic one?

By the way, the AR-15 typically fires small .223 caliber rounds – slightly larger than the rounds in the .22 handgun or rifle you learned to shoot. Most police officers carry semi-automatic pistols with much more powerful 9-millimeter rounds.

In 2007, the deadliest school shooting in history up to that time took place at Virginia Tech. 32 students – almost twice as many as at Parkland – were murdered with two semi-automatic pistols. So much for the politicians’ claims that “only an AR-15 could have killed so many people.” My advice: Don't listen to liars.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I do not own an AR-15. I have fired one, and guess what? It fires just like any other hunting rifle I have ever fired. It just LOOKS like a military FULLY AUTOMATIC weapon.
 
Broward County Sheriff Asks for Unconstitutional Powers

I was shocked to hear Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel that lawmakers should give him the power to troll through social media posts and “involuntarily restrain” persons and force them to be evaluated by a psychiatrist if he found “disturbing” photos or comments posted.
 
I don’t know if this guy is a recent immigrant from Communist China, or perhaps he was a former secret policeman from the old Soviet Union. But we don’t do things that way in America. To start with, who decides what is defined as “disturbing?” The Parkland shooter posted pictures of guns. Now, to a little old lady in New Jersey who’s never seen a gun except on TV, that might be disturbing. And, to be fair, put together with all the other things we have discovered about this kid, it is disturbing.
 
But I have friends in Broward County who are gun enthusiasts. They sometimes post pictures of guns they have bought – much like other people might post a photo of their latest bow and arrow purchase. Should they fear a midnight knock on their doors from a Broward County Deputy?
 
My guess is that he doesn’t really expect to be given police state powers. I think he was probably trying to deflect attention from his glaring dereliction of duty in two hours.
 
First, his department – along with the County Child Services Department and the FBI – had received numerous tips and complaints about the 19-year-old murderer. (I don’t want to mention his name because he craves attention that I don’t want to provide.) In fact, his department alone was called to the murderer’s residence twenty times since 2010, and other Broward police departments had been there 19 times. They didn’t need to wait for someone to “see something” and “say something” (although they did also receive citizens tips). They had their own records – but they did nothing.
 
Worse, he has a constitutional responsibility to protect the children at that High School. He regularly provides protection for visiting celebrities. He has several thousand deputies who spend a lot of time writing traffic tickets to bring money into the department. What if he had deployed some of those resources to the Parkland school? What if there had been more than ONE armed Deputy to protect over 3,000 students? How different might the outcome have been?
 
The Need for Armed Security:
Parkland Security Guard had Nothing but His Body with Which to Defend Kids

The news media always refers to Parkland High School hero Aaron Feis as a football coach. But the school principal stated he was on the security staff, and served part-time as an assistant football coach.

Why is this distinction important? It's because Feis was serving in his role as a school security guard when he placed his body in front of two students, shielding them while he died from a rain of bullets. Unfortunately, his body was all the school allowed him to use in defending the children.

The Liberal media is condemning Fox News because they pointed out that the school had inadequate security. One headline read, "Fox News pushes for more guns in schools, ignoring that guards in Parkland were already armed." That is, of course, a lie being repeated by Democrat politicians.

Here are the facts:
* The school had ONE armed security guard, a deputy sheriff. He never saw the shooter. 
* None of the other security "guards" were allowed to carry guns. As one of the Fox anchors asked, "What are they supposed to do - wrestle with an armed attacker?"
* This was a school with 3,200 students on a sprawling campus. The main building is three floors, and there are several other buildings. It's no wonder that the sole armed guard never encountered the shooter.
* According to security experts, a school that size needs at least twelve armed and trained officers to provide a minimum level of security.

A school spokeswoman said, "We did all we could. We drilled over and over for active shooter situations. There was nothing more we could have done." Obviously, that is untrue. They could have hired armed guards. If Feis had had a weapon, he might have stopped the shooter before more children were killed.

Democrat Senator Bill Nelson stated on Fox News, "We can't make our schools armed camps. That's not practical. And it's not reflective of our open society." What a hypocrite! It's practical for Congress to be completely surrounded by heavily armed guards. The protection he receives is "not reflective of our open society." But that's OK. He's important; he's a politician. The ones who were murdered were 'just kids' - obviously not important to Nelson.

Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade shared the fact that his kids attend a huge school on Long Island. The security staff there is made up of retired NYPD officers and detectives. As retired cops, they are allowed to carry concealed weapons wherever they go - except where they work. The school is concerned that kids might be "disturbed" by seeing weapons on campus. What's more disturbing - seeing a good guy carrying a gun to protect you, or looking down the barrel of a gun just before you are killed?
 
“Horrible Hillary” Clinton once referred to all guns and rifles as “Weapons of War.” The name stuck – among the lunatic fringe of her followers. Now you often hear news commentators using the same deceitful phrase. There are true hand-held weapons of war – fully automatic machine pistols and rifles; bazookas; grenade launchers; and SAM’s (Surface to Air Missiles), to name a few.
 
But the guns that law-abiding Americans buy for self-protection, hunting, sport shooting, and use on a farm are not “Weapons of War.” Nor are the weapons carried by most police officers. Hillary knows this. She’s not stupid - just extremely deceitful. She’s just like a Muslim terrorist; the Koran allows them to lie to “infidels.” Hillary thinks she’s allowed to lie if it’s for what she considers to be a good reason.
 
We should stop being afraid of guns, and be more concerned about the people planning the next attack on a school. All the active shooter drills in the schools and by the police will not stop the next shooter. If he is stopped, he will be stopped by armed people who are already in place waiting for him – people who will take him out before he gets a chance to fire the first shot.
 
This means several things.

First, we must have armed security people in all schools. Just like Israel showed the world how to stop plane hijackings with armed air marshals on every plane, they have shown us how to stop school shootings. Israeli law requires armed guards in schools. Even the terrorists don’t go to school. But in the U.S. many of our schools are “gun-free zones” – an open invitation to mass murderers.
 
Second, we should allow every teacher who is willing to do so the ability to carry a weapon while in class. The school boards should pay for their training and supply them with handguns. The State of Florida has offered to pay for the funerals of the 17 dead in Parkland. A handgun costs far less than a funeral.
 
Third, if the school or the police really don’t have the money to provide proper security, parents and retired cops and military should be allowed to patrol the schools with weapons. I would never allow my daughter to attend a public school, but I would volunteer to help protect other parents’ kids. And I believe many retired military and cops would do the same. In the aftermath of several school shootings, armed Marines and other vets showed up at schools to patrol and protect the kids. But the schools foolishly didn’t welcome them.
 
To our politicians: Stop all the blathering about Congress passing laws to stop school shootings. You know Congress doesn’t have that power. Stop with all the excuses about mental health causing mass shootings. Every murderer is mentally ill at some level. And it’s very rare that we predict who will snap before they take lives.
 
Let's do what we know we can do. You spineless politicians always make sure that no one can get to you while you’re at work. If you care as much about the children as you say you do, send your security guards to protect the children at school. Or appropriate the money to provide security, instead of grubbing for pork for your district or state. Your choice.
 
 
INTERNET RESEARCH:
 
Israel Dealt with School Shootings 40 Years Ago; We Should Learn from Them
https://townhall.com/columnists/lawrencemeyers/2018/02/15/president-trump-have-education-department-mandate-active-shooter-protocols-n2449726
 
The AR-115: The Gun Liberals Love to Hate
https://bearingarms.com/kkeene/2013/01/02/the-ar-15-the-gun-liberals-love-to-hate/

Educators Beg State for School Security Money
https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/education/2018/02/14/educators-keep-asking-more-school-safety-money-but-state-keeps-saying-no/843947001/
 
Modern Sporting Rifle Facts
https://www.nssf.org/msr/
 
Broward Sheriff Calls for Power to Detain Over Social Media
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sheriff-florida-shooting-calls-power-detain-over-social-media-n848486