Sandy Hook Observations: After the fact, Part 3

 I was going to do all of them in one blog, but it is a daunting task and there are so many, so I decided to break them up and do one every week or two. I realize that most are sick of it all by now and either way they don't want to read a 30 minute blog. So, I broke them up. At the end of this blog, I will list the first two if you wish to read them.

Here is the third one.
 

It has now been 11 weeks since the tragedy at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut. They say time heals all wounds. We could debate that, but time does seem to take the sting out of them. As time passes, the emotion of that day and the week or two that followed has given way to lots of discussion and debate. And as it stands now, pretty much the status quo and a return to how it was before. That is what almost always happens in these types of situations. Will there ever be any concrete, tangible changes because of what happened at Sandy Hook? I doubt it. But at least for a short time it brought those issues to the surface like no other event since 9/11.
There were so many layers to this story and all the hysteria and debate it caused. When you boil it down however, Sandy Hook was the act of one very disturbed 20 year old and the tragic loss of 28 lives. Yes, I wrote 28, because I include Adam Lanza in that. He was human and I am sure if he had his choice he would not have wanted to been born broken and disturbed. That isn't really what this blog is about, but I wanted to mention that right off the top. A lot of people lost their lives on December 14th, 2012 and millions of others will be forever effected in some way. 
This blog however is about some observations I had in relation to what happened before and after the incident. Some bear on what did happen, but only indirectly.
 

3) If we had armed guards in schools, malls, theaters, stadiums..etc...things would be safer and innocent people wouldn't get shot.

"Every mom and dad would feel better if we have a police officer in that school. A good guy...with a gun..to protect them."

 -Wayne LaPierre
 

This statement brought up so many points I could write 10 blogs on it. But basically it all boils down to one thing: Do you want to live in a society that requires armed guards just about everywhere, to ensure our safety, all the time knowing that wouldn't work anyway?
I don't. 
But just for arguments sake,  lets hash out the probabilities anyway. 
What if we put armed guards at the door of every school in the United States?
First off, what would that cost? If your taxes went up 5% a year, would you be willing to pay that? I wouldn't. I doubt most would. But lets say they would pay for it. Then what?
Well, unless there is just one entrance to the school, which would be foolish considering the chance of fire, then we would need 2 or 3 armed guards minimum to cover all bases. So, now our taxes are up 10%. Would you pay that? I wouldn't. But lets say we would.
What about the windows? Couldn't a crazed gunman just come up beside the classroom, with the same AK-47 and start shooting? What would the guard do about that? Should we take all the windows out of every school and every classroom? Why don't we just make them jails while we are at it. 
Aren't we teaching kids that school is not a safe place to be if we start doing these things? Of course we are. Is that the message we want to send to kids? I don't think it is. 
School is a place to learn. They will learn and also they will become aware that there is some risk to anything, albeit extremely a low risk when it comes to school shootings. Because in reality, it almost never happens.
But lets say that we close all the windows. We now, theoretically, have all the doors and windows covered. But you have to get the kids there and get them home. The vast majority of parents can't and don't take their kids to school. They take the bus. Should we now put armed guards on the school bus? Would that even matter? What if the crazed person went in the middle of the night and put a bomb under one of the seats. Can we stop that too? Should we even try? 
Lets say we could. We could stop that. Kids have to get off the bus and go home at some point. When 4 or 5 kids get off the bus and start to walk, can't the crazed person get them then? And do they even need a gun? No, they don't. They could just use a car. Should we take all cars away and licenses away? 
Yes, so now lets do that. Can't the gunman just get a knife and walk right up and stab the kids to death on the street? Of course he/she can..and will. Where does it end?
Lets suppose this all works. Now teachers can carry guns too. Do they always have to be mindful of where their guns are? Sure they do. Because what if some kid took it and began playing around with it at recess, as kids are want to do. How can they concentrate on teaching, which is their actual job? They can't.   
 In life we understand that we take certain risks. Acceptable risks based on the probability that they will work out in our favor.
Driving a car on a daily basis is one of those. Will we get in an accident at some point. Yes, that is likely. Will we die from that accident? Some will, but very few and we aren't likely to do so..as long as we are careful drivers and we avoid high risk areas and weather conditions.
Flying on an airplane is another. Are we likely to crash? Highly unlikely. The odds are stacked against that happening. But if we do crash, we are likely to die. We accept that risk when we aim to go to places quickly that we otherwise would not be able to go to.
What is the likelihood that our children will be shot by a gunman in school, or ourselves in a movie theater? Less likely than dieing in a car accident and certainly infinitely less than crashing in an airplane. That doesn't mean it wont happen. It will. At some point in the future, some crazed gunman is going to do again what Adam Lanza did. You can count on that. And that is a tragedy. But an even bigger tragedy would be taking a knee jerk reaction and depriving our kids of a proper education,  one in which they don't pass an armed guard at the front door of the school. An armed guard who is highly unlikely to ever encounter a crazed gunman, but very much more likely to get into a confrontation with a rowdy student and shoot him/her where they otherwise would not be able to.
Can we make schools safer? Maybe. There is always room for improvement. Can we stop a crazed gunman from killing a bunch of kids if he/she wants to, really, really wants to? No. We cannot. If schools become safer in some way because of this, then that is great. If this results in more armed guards at the front of schools, then that is one of the worst results of this tragedy.
Some people will always be harmed, in this case shot. There is nothing we can do about that. When you have a country of 350 million people a certain percentage will get shot, armed guards or not. 
 
http://markdeutsch39.blogspot.ca/2013/02/sandy-hook-observations-after-fact.html

http://markdeutsch39.blogspot.ca/2013/02/sandy-hook-observations-after-fact-part_21.html 

Sandy Hook Observations: After the fact, Part 2

I was going to do all of them in one blog, but it is a daunting task and there are so many, so I decided to break them up and do one every week or two. I realize that most are sick of it all by now and either way they don't want to read a 30 minute blog. So, I broke them up. Here is the second one. At the end is the first one.

It has now been 9 weeks since the tragedy at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut. They say time heals all wounds. We could debate that, but time does seem to take the sting out of them. As time passes, the emotion of that day and the week or two that followed has given way to lots of discussion and debate. And as it stands now, pretty much the status quo and a return to how it was before. That is mostly what happens in these types of situations. Will there ever be any concrete, tangible changes because of what happened at Sandy Hook? I doubt it. But at least for a short time it brought those issues to the surface like no other event since 9/11.
There were so many layers to this story and all the hysteria and debate it caused. When you boil it down however, Sandy Hook was the act of one very disturbed 20 year old and the tragic loss of 28 lives. Yes, I wrote 28, because I include Adam Lanza in that. He was human and I am sure if he had his choice he would not have wanted to been born broken and disturbed. That isn't really what this blog is about, but I wanted to mention that right off the top. A lot of people lost their lives on December 14th, 2012 and millions of others will be forever effected in some way. 
This blog however is about some observations I had in relation to what happened before and after the incident. Some bear on what did happen, but only indirectly.

Guns Kill people and people kill people. Let's stop both of them from killing people.

2) The polarization of the immediate debates on gun control. A worthy debate, but not really relevant to what happened in Sandy Hook and how to stop this sort of incident, if it is stoppable, which is debatable.
 
I was traveling most of the day the shooting happened. I heard a bit of it on the radio on my drive from Toronto to Pittsburgh. I had a very long day ahead of me the next day (11 hours, Pittsburgh to Birmingham, Alabama) so I was limited to how much time I could spend on Facebook. But it wasn't hard to see that the arguments and ranting had already started. Heated argument. Very heated arguments. It appears that friendships were lost over this.
This one event seemed to be a platform for all the cause seekers on both sides to push out their thoughts and agendas once again. And as usual, almost everyone missed the point. They do have points to make (many are valid on both sides) but in this case they were using an event that didn't have much of anything to do with their cause. That didn't stop any of them, which is not surprising. It never does.
Yes, guns kill people. That is their purpose. Gun are designed to shoot bullets that are generally aimed to at least severely injure and hurt and most times to kill.  Police are taught to shoot to kill, not just impede. Almost everyone who shoots a bullet at an animal or person is aiming to kill them. Guns are meant to kill people. No two ways about that. But as many on the pro gun side point out,  guns don't shoot themselves. People have to shoot them. So, it isn't the guns, it is people. People kill people.
People kill people. Yes, people kill people. Since the beginning of time people have killed people. And they will till the day I die and long afterwards. That will never stop. Yes, people with guns kill people. So do people without guns. 
Some use a knife. Others use poisons. While still others use blunt instruments like a baseball bat or cars. Still others use bombs and weapons of mass destruction. There is no end to the amount of ways that people can kill people. And if you took away all the ways they currently have to do it,  they will invent new ones. People, some people, want to kill people and they will find a way.  
When all else fails, some people can just beat you to death with their own fists and body. How are you ever going to stop that? You are not.
In this case, a mentally unstable young man who should not have had any access to any weapon that can do any harm did. But obviously he was intent on finding a way to do what he did, on some level. So, he would have. You can never stop all of these types from doing that. America has more than 300 million people. Some of those are going to slip through the cracks and find a way. Take away all the guns. Everyone's guns. Take away their knives, bombs,  crowbars, bats, whatever. They will find a way. Somehow. Worse comes to worse, they can use the oldest method available to man. Fire. You can't stop fire. Anyone can create fire. Are you going to take away the sun?
Yes, America has a huge problem with guns. A daily problem with guns and people who have them that should not. Take away all the freak incidents and what are you left with? More than 10,000 gun deaths a year.  Almost all of those are committed by people killing one or two people. Many with illegal firearms. 
This incident was a tragedy. But it would have happened on some level, somewhere, done by someone..whether he had a handgun, shotgun,  AK-47 or a knife. The incident is not about the gun issue. It is just one of those things. 
Would having tougher gun laws possibly prevented this incident? Maybe. It is possible. But maybe it would not have. Arguing for gun control based on this incident is arguing for something that is valid but has very little to do with the actual incident. I am in favor of very strict gun control. But not because of this incident. Because most people are not responsible enough or in need of a gun. Currently they have the right to have one. That doesn't mean they should. Rights are one thing. Being capable and deserving is another. That isn't a gun control issue, it is a common sense issue.
So, how do we stop this sort of thing. Take away the guns? Well, that simply won't work. We should take the guns away from most people because they don't need them. Period. But even if we did, when we do,  crazy people (and not so crazy people) will find a way to kill people if they really want to. That is just a fact of life.
How do I know this? Because long before there were guns,  they already did. In countries and areas where they don't have guns, they still do. 
I agree that America needs to rid themselves of guns. Too many people have them. It would be a safer place for all of us if they didn't have them. But arguing that it is time to do that because of this incident points out a sad fact about people. They justify an cause based on incident that has little to do with the reason they want the action initiated. And when they do that, people just tune them out.
That is what happened here. It is easy to discount an argument based on this tactic. And it has been. Which is why nothing will change. Not because of this incident anyway.
The goal is to stop people from being killed. We should focus on that. Trying to make this about guns, or mental illness or anything other than what it is, just undercuts your own argument. Taking guns away might stop some people from being killed. It might have stopped some or all of these Sandy Hook kids and adults from being killed. But it might not have.  
The bigger gun control issue is simply a matter of determining who should actually have a gun and if the right people were the only ones with guns,  how many lives overall would be saved and how much safety would be lost by those who now don't have a gun at their disposal. That is the debate about gun control that should take place. Not about one incident caused by one mentally unstable man who would likely find a way to achieve his delusional goal anyway.     

http://markdeutsch39.blogspot.ca/2013/02/sandy-hook-observations-after-fact.html

Sandy Hook Observations: After the fact: Part 1

I was going to do all of them in one blog, but it is a daunting task and there are so many, so I decided to break them up and do one every week or two. I realize that most are sick of it all by now and either way they don't want to read a 30 minute blog. So, I broke them up. Here is the first one.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------

It has now been 8 weeks since the tragedy at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut. They say time heals all wounds. We could debate that, but time does seem to take the sting out of them. As time passes, the emotion of that day and the week or two that followed has given way to lots of discussion and debate. And as it stands now, the status quo and a return to how it was before. Pretty much what always happens in these types of situations. Will there ever be any concrete, tangible changes because of what happened at Sandy Hook? I doubt it. But at least for a short time it brought those issues to the surface like no other event since 9/11.
There were so many layers to this story and all the hysteria and debate it caused. When you boil it down however, Sandy Hook was the act of one very disturbed 20 year old and the tragic loss of 28 lives. Yes, I wrote 28, because I include Adam Lanza in that. He was human and I am sure if he had his choice he would not have wanted to been born broken and disturbed. That isn't really what this blog is about, but I wanted to mention that right off the top. A lot of people lost their lives on December 14th, 2012 and millions of others will be forever effected in some way. 
This blog however is about some observations I had in relation to what happened before and after the incident. Some bear on what did happen, but only indirectly.

1) The way people reacted to this initially on that day.

There seemed to be shock and horror. Horror I get. It is horrific what happened. None of us can imagine that happening to our kids. But shock? Nope. I don't know how you can be shocked when this sort of thing happens with alarming frequency and consistency. Yes, it was mostly kids, very young children this time. The kind of kids that many parents can relate to. Kids just like they have. Helpless, innocent 6 and 7 year olds who didn't really know about the big bad evil world we live in. Part of the way we cope with life is making certain assumptions. One of those is that our young kids are safe in grade schools where kids are not old enough to do more than have playground fist fights and wrestling matches. Six and Seven year olds don't carry guns or knives to school. They don't form gangs of bullies and torment kids the way 13, 14 and 15 year olds do. Other than that, schools are supposed to be safe havens. When you send your kid to school, you expect him or her to show up on that 3pm bus home at the end of the school day. If you go to pick them up, you expect them to come running out with their backpack and school books. 
But life in this day and age simply isn't like that. This time it happened at a school. Six months before that it was a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Six months before that a shopping mall. Every day in America it happens just about anywhere you can think of. This was bound to happen. The luck of the draw. Horrific, yes. Shocking. No. 
Inevitable.  
And you can be certain of this: Armed guards or no armed guards in schools, this will happen again. Maybe it wont be 27 killed, maybe more, maybe less, but it will happen. Many times. As the frequency of incidents escalates because America is a very violent culture and just about every American has access to any gun they want, when the economy gets worse and people become desperate, the frequency of these types of incidents are going to increase, not decrease, armed guards or not. The only shock is those that simply refused to see the signs of this type of reality for years and got smacked in the face on this day. Hopefully they are horrified and outraged next time, but not shocked. I would be shocked if it didn't happen again in the next two years.

Point 2 next week.