Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Nashville shooting: My reaction is deeply personal for a reason.

 Once again, it happened. The Nashville shooting: My reaction is deeply personal and close to home.

A person armed with assault rifles (two of them bought legally) crashed a school in Nashville and killed three kids, their teacher, the headmaster, and the school custodian. Once again, some political leaders failed us.

"We aren't gonna fix it" was the response of a Tennessee Congressman to the Nashville shooting. "We have a mental health problem", he says, so fix that. What needs to be fixed is congresspeople like him by voting his fellow travelers out. Another Congressman representing the Covenant school district, bemoaning the killing, claimed there is nothing we can do about it. How dumb do they think people are? Unless the easy access to weapons of war is fixed or truly effective red flag laws are enacted, the mentally balanced will always be able to act out their fantasies, even if they are already under the care of a mental health professional...and many, particularly younger ones, are not. That is the lesson from Nashville where the shooter did not fool the mental health professional but did fool his parents and had the legal ability to buy seven weapons. .

And, yes, there is a mental health issue. Even when dangerous potential shooters with mental health problems had been identified an effective mechanism was not in place to prevent them from getting hold of weapons or carrying out their intent. Mental health problems had been identified by parents, administrators, and professionals in Nashville, in Boulder Colorado King Soopers, in the suburban school where my granddaughter cowered in the closet next to the room with the shooter, in the Aurora Colorado theater massacre shooter, and even in New Town and Nashville. There are policies that are ineffective to stop known potential problem individuals, that coddle dangerous students with known mental health threats. Red flag laws difficult to use, easy access to weapons, unwise problem student plans, are not enough. We may never stop all shooters with mental health problems, but we can save many lives if we address these things.
Let us also not kid ourselves about mental health. Parents can be fooled, and even professionals may miss the extent of the murderous intent. Both the Louisville bank shooter and the Nashville shooter bought assault rifles legally, even though professionals and their parents knew they were having mental health issues. The Aurora theater shooter in Colorado was already under a professional's care, and she had spotted how dangerous he was, but reporting it to upstream officials did no good as they ignored her warning, prompting revised red flag procedures after the fact of the slaughter.. Unless assault rifles are taken off the shelves, red flag laws are made more effective, smart wannabe death by cops and future mass shooters will still slip through the cracks, fooling professionals and parents alike. A clinical psychologist I asked about that. Even if the person is in the care of a professional, there is a 50-50 chance they will identify a potential killer, she told me. This is the line still used to divert attention from any solution the gun rights zealots oppose and even now (update 4/15/2023) Donald Trump is using to deflect us from some hard facts that mental health initiatives are not enough. Everything Trump Said About Mass Shootings in NRA Speech (newsweek.com)

We need to stop the shrugging it off, the lying, the stonewalling of legislation, the promotion of weapons of war in the hands of civilians, and the pious opining there is nothing we can do. Mental health is the problem so these things will happen, they say. The assault gun-promoting congressperson from the Nashville district of the Covenant School. said he was heartbroken and thanked the cops who got to the school in 14 minutes and took down the killer. At least that. Now, Mr. Congressman, do something about it. So, Congressman cut out the sad shrug, stop lying about the 2nd Amendment, his personal promotion of assault weapon ownership, and put kids first over his own self-centered irresponsible obsessions. His fellow apologists said there is nothing we can do. Some even had the gall after Uvalde to say we just have to live with this. Sick. Sick. Sick. Their interpretation of the Constitution is not even supported by Supreme Court jurists. in the Heller decision. . That same Nashville Congressman and his family promoted their interpretations of the second amendment even on a Christmas card assault-weapon-toting family photo just like Colorado's Rep. Lauren Boebert did. Sick. Sick. Sick. The ball is now in Congress' court dominated by shruggers and assault weapon gun lovers. It will not change until their voters act.

In the wake of East High school shootings, the Colorado state legislature worked to pass a couple of gun safety bills in March> Colorado legislature works through the weekend to advance two major gun laws (koaa.com)  State by-state action is helpful, assuming the wannabe mass killer does not take a quick jaunt to a nearby state.   Colorado is surrounded by many states with more lax laws.  For that reason, the issue needs to be addressed on the federal level, too, by Congress.  For citations of existing gun safety laws in Colorado: Firearm Legislation, Rules and Statutes | Colorado Bureau of Investigation    Can states pass such laws without violating Heller? Yes. 2nd Amendment rights are not unlimited: We could go on for days debating the right of individuals to own weapons of war. The issue has not been resolved, though the majority of the public favors banning them as we have before the ban was sunsetted and not renewed. Thereafter, mass shootings involved more than 4 because of the ability to kill so many in such a short time before there could be any intervention. Citing English common law to say that a person has an absolute right to have such weapons is interesting, but the operative decision here and now is the Heller 5-4 decision on the supreme court. It involved handguns and a too-restrictive law rendering their use useless for either the ability to be part of a militia if needed (police officer for example) and for self-protection and protection of a person's home. Yes, it did establish an individual person who did not belong to a well-regulated militia could keep a handgun for the defense of their home (FYI..I comply and agree). However, the right is not unrestricted; there can be restrictions. I am no lawyer, but this analysis was found on the U of Connecticut law school site." The Second Amendment right is not absolute and a wide range of gun control laws remain “presumptively lawful,” according to the Court. These include laws that (1) prohibit carrying concealed weapons, (2) prohibit gun possession by felons or the mentally retarded, (3) prohibit carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, (4) impose “conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” (5) prohibit “dangerous and unusual weapons,” and (6) regulate firearm storage to prevent accidents. Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by Justices Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, and Thomas.

Justices Stevens and Breyer filed separate dissenting opinions. Stevens asserts that the Second Amendment (1) protects the individual right to bear arms only in the context of military service and (2) does not limit the government's authority to regulate civilian use or possession of firearms. He describes the majority's individual-right holding as “strained and unpersuasive”; its conclusion, “overwrought and novel.” Stevens was joined in his dissent by Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, and Souter." https://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-r-0578.htm

For state by state maps, search Bing for gun safety laws, where I found many.

Know the symptoms: advice for non-professionals for what signs to look for potential... killers  Know The Signs: You Can Prevent Gun Violence and Other Harmful Acts — Sandy Hook Promise

https://www.vice.com/en/article/a35mya/nearly-all-mass-shooters-since-1966-have-had-four-things-in-common

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I am a grandmother of one grandchild who survived the school shooting in Colorado. She will be haunted by the memory of that moment for the rest of her life, the same as all survivors of such mass shootings. What about their mental health? https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/health/surviving-school-shooting-impacts-mental-health-education-and-earnings-american The armed community relations cop responded, and the shooter shot himself next to the room where she was hiding and before more were killed. She heard it all and was in the last classroom to be cleared and her horror-stricken mother waited in the reunification place. A grandson huddled under his desk for a morning in a neighboring school to New Town/Sandy Hook, Connecticut.
In a Denver suburb, the first and iconic school shooting, Columbine happened, and many kids were killed as cops feared to enter. Not all school shooting involved weapons of war, and sometimes cowardice or lack of training of law enforcement permit a slaughter to continue. In Nashville and Ulvalde, the shooter used these weapons of war. There a more examples of this. The history of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 : NPR Even in Nashville, 6 were killed before the police took the shooter down 14 minutes after the first 911 call came in. In Uvalde a slaughter of kids continued as the cops cowered outside the door, fearing they were unable to take out a well-armed shooter. In a Denver's East High School this month, two administrators were shot (survived), as they tried to unarm a student. The reason untrained civilians had to perform the dangerous maneuver was because armed community relations officers had been withdrawn from all Denver schools recently (a decision that was reversed immediately). In the 1980's as Denver city clerk I sat in on a city council debate restricting the sale of large ammunition clips and hollow bullets as outgunned cops fought open warfare with gangs. The issues are that old and that new even in a state as blue as mine.
Let us start with saluting the hero cops and helping police become the heroes they are. Then, let us cut out this shrugging and handwringing. Let us stop hiding behind a misreading of second amendment rights (that protects only a well-regulated militia's right to bear arms), get the CRO's back in school, and get the sales of weapons of war banned.
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