What has been evolving out of the Valentine’s Day shooting in Parkland, Florida, beggars belief.

I wasn’t even going to write about it, but decided to do so once people began clamouring for gun control and ignore mental health issues, including the effect that SSRIs can have on the mind. I followed up with another post on the media attention certain young people received.

Before I discuss two more contributing factors — lack of two-parent households as well as School and law enforcement policies for young people — let us look at the latest headlines in the aftermath of the shooting.

Latest curiosities

CNN held a town hall broadcast with Florida senators Marco Rubio (R) and Bill Nelson (D) about gun control. A student from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the scene of the crime, was in attendance and already had a question prepared. He claimed that CNN gave him a scripted question.

From Real Clear Politics (emphases mine):

Colton Haab said he was approached by CNN to ask a question at Wednesday night’s town hall but decided not to after the network gave him a “scripted question,” quashing one he wrote himself. Haab, a member of the Junior ROTC, shielded students while the school was under attack from the shooter, said he was going to ask about using veterans as armed security guards …

“CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions and it ended up being all scripted,” Haab told WPLG-TV …

“I expected to be able to ask my questions and give my opinion on my questions,” Haab said.

“Colton Haab, a member of the Junior ROTC who shielded classmates in the midst of terror says he did not get to share his experience,” WPLG’s Janine Stanwood explained.

“Colton wrote questions about school safety, suggested using veterans as armed school security guards but claims CNN wanted him to ask a scripted question instead so he decided not to go,” Stanwood reported.

CNN responded:

CNN did not, and does not, script any questions for town hall meetings, ever.

Really? One wonders.

On Wednesday, February 21, Alex Jones interviewed a student at the school who Snopes says is not enrolled there. Infowars has an article, a video and the student’s school schedule (emphasis in the original):

Managing editor of left-leaning publication Snopes Brook Binkowski attempted to discredit a Marjory Stoneman Douglas student in a now-deleted tweet for calling in on The Alex Jones Show the day after the shooting took place.

However, records reveal the student, Jalen Martin, does in fact attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school.

Here is the video. Jalen’s interview is the first part. He says there had been a fire drill in the morning, then, in the afternoon, they heard the alarm again. Everyone evacuated the building and Jalen says people were talking about whether it was a code black (bomb) or code red (active shooter). One of Jalen’s classmates left his phone behind, so Jalen lent him his. The boy rang his mother to say that there was a shooter. A teacher overheard and told him, ‘Don’t say that!’ The teacher confiscated the phone and looked as if he were about to break it. Jalen stepped in to say, ‘That’s my phone’:

Jalen also told Jones that there was a visit from the Secret Service four weeks prior to the shooting to train teachers in defence. That was also reported after the shooting took place.

Why would the Secret Service do that sort of training, impose protocols and regular drills? That is not part of their function.

Jalen said that the students were not allowed to leave — or call anyone to let them know what was happening — until later. Law enforcement showed up within just a few minutes. He also confirmed multiple shooters.

In short, the official story line does not add up.

In another development, the mother of one of the young media stars has connections at CNN. Big League Politics explains (emphases mine):

“Great VIP tour,” said a post by Rebecca Boldrick showing a series of photos taken in 2016 at CNN world headquarters.

One photo shows her children sitting at an anchor’s desk.

Boldrick is the mother of David Hogg, who has gained internet fame for his activism in the days since the shooting …

Hogg and his merry band of anti-gun crusaders have been paraded around by nearly every cable news network in America.

Apparently, activism runs in the family. A series of Facebook posts show that Boldrick is an avowed Democrat and anti-Trumper …

“I can’t sit by and do nothing with what is going on currently in the USA,” says one of Boldrick’s posts. “If you like what Trump is currently doing please unfriendly [sic] or block me because you won’t like what I am going to begin posting.”

The article concludes:

Is this organic, grassroots teen activism in the wake of a horrible tragedy, or are these children being exploited in an orchestrated effort to serve the political interests of adults?

There seems to be something very selective about these calls for gun control. Why aren’t the same people outraged about MS-13? FrontPageMag has an excellent article on the subject. Daniel Greenfield, the author, points out:

The media can’t be bothered to talk about their victims because it’s politically inconvenient. Many of the perps are illegal aliens or undocumented beheaders. The victims aren’t people they could envision as their kids. And reporting on MS-13’s crimes endangers their push for illegal alien amnesty. It also shines a harsh light on the policies of Obama Inc.

But while CNN won’t have that town hall, conservatives should. Imagine President Trump hearing more from the Latino parents of MS-13 victims. The media would have to grit its teeth and cover the story.

Failures of law enforcement and mental health treatment

A school administrator from Florida tweeted to ask questions about the shooting. It’s a long thread and well worth reading. Excerpts follow:

As for the aforementioned son of a retired FBI agent (father) and anti-Trump activist (mother):

It is weird that part of the school building will now be demolished. Has forensic evidence been collected? Sound familiar? Think Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut:

His conclusion:

I for one am SICK TO DEATH of fake news outlets pretending this is about a rifle- its not. Its about a mentally ill person, totally abandoned and discarded and politically expediently ignored, by multiple agencies allowed to commit inhumane acts of terror due to incompetence. END

Local school board policies and law enforcement failing troubled teens

Here are some answers for Mr Bouchell.

The Conservative Treehouse has an illuminating post about how Broward County — where Parkland is located — and Miami-Dade County (immediately to the south) enacted policies whereby students could not be arrested. Please take the time to read the post in full. Two excerpts follow:

In 2012 and 2013 while doing research into the Trayvon Martin shooting we discovered an alarming set of school policies being enacted in Miami-Dade and Broward County Florida.  The policies were called “diversionary programs” and were essentially about stopping High School students from being arrested. Law enforcement was instructed to avoid arrests and defer criminal conduct to school administrators.

Students who engaged in violence, drug sales, robberies, burglaries, theft and other various crimes were intentionally kept out of the criminal justice system.  County administrators and School Superintendents told local and county law enforcement officers to stop arresting students …

Unfortunately, the school board mandated policies came into conflict with law and order. The problem of the conflicted policy -vs- legality worsened over time as the police excused much more than misdemeanor crimes.  Over time this culminated in police officers falsifying documents, hiding criminal activity, lying on official police reports and even hiding stolen merchandise police retrieved from high school students.

Imagine what happens after an extended period of time? A mass shooting that could have been prevented if a twisted school/law enforcement policy had not been in place. Given that police visited Nikolas Cruz’s home at the request of his mother 39 times, had the system been left alone, he never would have been allowed to handle firearms. He probably would have had better mental health care, too.

Fatherlessness a huge issue

On February 17, Susan L M Goldberg wrote an excellent article for PJ Media about the effect the lack of a father has on young men. Excerpts follow:

Now that the gun control advocates have had their fifteen minutes of fame, let’s start focusing on the real issues impacting the rise in school shootings since that infamous day in Columbine in 1999. Issue number one that no one in the mainstream media or government wants to acknowledge: fatherlessness. Specifically, the impact of fatherlessness on the boys who grew up to become school shooters.

Nikolas Cruz was adopted. His adoptive father died when he was a boy. His mother, who was in her 60s when she died in November 2017, could not control him, hence the police visits.

Goldberg provides various statistics on the damage the absence of a father has on young men:

As Terry Brennan, co-founder of Leading Women for Shared Parenting, notes:

72 percent of adolescent murderers grew up without fathers; the same for 60 percent of all rapists.

70 percent of juveniles in state institutions grew up in single- or no-parent situations

The number of single-parent households is a good predictor of violent crime in a community, while poverty rate is not.

This is a dangerous situation for society — not just in the US but elsewhere in the West. We are deceiving ourselves when we argue against guns:

Instead of spending so much as fifteen minutes on fatherlessness we are forced to endure the same salacious headlines, the same provocative tweets, the same tired old memes about the evils of guns as if somehow a cold piece of metal convinced yet another boy to become a mass-murderer. We ignore the lack of adequate mental health services, the failure of law enforcement to effectively intercede, and the sickening impact fatherlessness has on each one of these tragic cases. Why? Because it is easier to ban a hunk of metal than it is to right systemic cultural wrongs.

She rightly concludes:

What is the primary way to attack a boy’s masculinity? Strip him of his primary male role model: his father. Over the past 50 years, we have taught women to embrace single motherhood and to cut fathers out of their children’s lives through divorce. Now, thanks to the gun control echo-chamber, it will probably take another 50 years to right the wrongs we’ve done to our fathers and our boys.

I couldn’t agree more.

Conclusion

Single-parent homes are not serving society well. In Cruz’s case, one can understand that his mother might not have wanted to remarry. Perhaps her husband was the love of her life. However, it would have been good for her to get male role models for her sons in the form of a family friend or a relative.

School boards are failing troubled teens by asking law enforcement to compromise proper procedures.

Law enforcement officers are failing troubled teens by enabling bad behaviour in accordance with school board policies.

More gun control is a bad idea. Europe is largely a gun free zone outside of police and criminals. Many European cities — e.g. Marseille — have turned into violent dumps where shoot-outs occur with alarming regularity. Criminals have no problems getting firearms.

All of these factors make a heady brew for a mass shooting.