My prayers go out to the victims and victim’s families of Parkland. Once again evil has had its way to injure and murder innocent people.
2 Timothy 3 states; But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Let’s face it, the world is full of evil people. People who have harden hearts. People who have no respect for human life. People who are cowards and pray on the innocent.
It is natural to want to see action following a tragedy such as the one in Parkland. Who doesn’t want to see something created that will stop this type of of situation from ever happening again. The problem is, we cannot legislate the heart. We cannot make people care about others with pen and paper. There are currently 20,000 state, local and federal gun laws on the books. Not one of these law can stop an active shoot event. Why? Because evil people don’t abide by the law.
Following the Columbine shooting, no gun zones were created throughout the country. No guns are allowed on school property. I ask you, How’s that working for us? No gun zones create soft targets. This means there is no resistance to someone wanting to do harm. No one with a gun to stop someone with a gun. Since Columbine there have been over 25 school shootings. Are we so naive that we believe that a killer wanting high body counts are going to be stopped by a sign that says “ No Guns Allowed “? These people are willing to break any law to accomplish their goal.
An assault rifle was used in the Parkland shooting. So let’s outlaw assault rifles. That will stop this from ever happening again. The problem with this thinking is most past school shooters didn’t used assault rifles. In addition, if we outlaw such guns they will still be available on the black market. In 1994 Congress passed a law that placed a ten year ban on certain assault type weapons. That same law expired in 2004. During the ten year ban there were 28 mass shooting incidents most of which were accomplished without the use of assault weapons.
Another problem to consider is that China has a total ban on firearms. But they too, have experienced numerous school killings. No guns were used. Instead the children were hacked to death with machetes and hatchets. If an individual wants to do harm they will find a way to accomplish the goal no matter what laws are passed.
So some say we should do away with all guns. Why should the law abiding citizen be punished? They have done nothing wrong. Instead, all they want to do is to have a means to protect their families and themselves. Law Enforcement will protect us. The fact is law enforcement usually arrive after the incident. This is not a criticism of our police. I support our police. I have worked side by side with local police for many years. My own daughter is a police officer. Unfortunately most police departments are under staffed. Based on the current population of the U.S., 1 police office must protect over 1,800 citizens. That is an impossible task.
Most active shooter incident are over in less than twelve minutes. But in that time frame many lives can be taken. EMS and law enforcement must work together to develop aggressive approaches to counter the shooter. (This will be discussed in a later article.)
Yes, changes must take place, but let’s make sure we make changes that will actually work. We need people to stand up and report suspicious things that doesn’t look right. We need to teach people to be more aware of their surroundings. Monitoring social media and following up on potential threats can go a long way in preventing attacks such as experienced by Parkland.
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