Teachers, social workers, and guidance counselors tried repeatedly to help Nicolas Cruz. His aberrant behavior started in middle school. He was known as a problem. He was referred for therapy. He was sent to a school for emotionally disturbed youth.
Security guards were alerted to search his backpack for guns.
Why was this very troubled, very angry young allowed to buy a gun?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Of course, the problem goes way beyond this one, very disturbed individual.
See this:
America’s unique gun violence problem, explained in 17 maps and charts – Vox
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts
The NRA and their political lackeys are responsible for this terrible situation. The paranoia of people who believe they need military weapons creates an extremely dangerous situation. How can a civil society tolerate private armies under the guise of militias? The United States is seeing the beginnings of warlordism condoned by our elected officials. Florida is one of the worst and most dangerous of states. Governor Scott got the feds not to allow drilling off of the Florida coast. How about standing up to the NRA governor? Or, aren’t children as important?
Here is the most frightening thing:
Did the NRA receive $50 million from Russian oligarchs to spent on the 2016 election to elect Trump and Republicans who would fight any laws prohibiting assault weapons that can gun down dozens of Americans in a minute?
https://www.snopes.com/2018/02/16/did-kremlin-give-money-to-nra/
https://www.wired.com/story/pro-gun-russian-bots-flood-twitter-after-parkland-shooting/
I don’t think most of the membership of the NRA likes that Trump made it easier for mentally ill Americans to easily purchase as many assault weapons as they want. But the NRA leadership sure does. And so do a lot of pro-gun Russia bots.
I gather we know the NRA spent something like $70million in ads, campaign contribs etc to support the Trump pres campaign.
It’s bad enough that priv interests are allowed to spend $10’s of millions on campaign ads & contributions. Is that about the Cit-United decision? I know that paves the way for unlimited corp contribs, what about campaign ads? Hopefully they were at least reqd by law to attribute the ads to the NRA…
I can’t find anything in your links to prove the NRA actually recvd $50million from Torshin [/Russian mob $ most likely] [which would have underwritten the lion’s share of their Trump support] — why is that? i.e., what squirrelly law has legalized unlimited UNATTRIBUTED foreign contributions to a US political group? Is this just about the Cit-United decision, or is there some interplay w/501(c)3-4 law? Inquiring minds want to know. Cuz I always want to know what campaign/ ‘non-profit’/ PAC laws need to be repealed in order to turn the cruise-ship back around toward democracy.
But as to the Russian-bot issue [said she, recently jaded by reading Mueller’s indictments last week], gun-control seems obvious fodder for the bot-farm mission to exploit hot-button US political issues in their effort to maximize political division, which undermines Congressional compromise & undermines gen populace’s confidence in their democratic institutions.
Right, because without da Russkies, the U.S. would have no gun problems at all.
Darn Russkies cause all the problems!!!
Facepalm
Yeah, Dienne 77, I’m w/you. Russkie bots are just capitalizing on/ amplifying polarization on the peculiar American obsession w/ guns.
I would guess that we’ve all encountered students like this — in the sense that they were disruptive enough that you were willing to go through the laborious process of doing the paperwork, documenting months of behavior, in the hope of getting help for a troubled child. And are grateful that in all that time until the student got the appropriate services – or didn’t, nothing disastrous happened. The fact that the needs of children are the least of our political considerations is worse than the lack of sensible gun regulation.
With all the things people are saying, WTF didn’t the FBI go have a sit down with him?
No one on this thread knows. Maybe they get thousands of referrals like this every month. How would we know?
Yes. It’s pretty easy to look back and connect the proverbial dots. But right now there are thousands of dots and various agencies trying to connect them. The Monday morning quarterbacks should have a look at all that data and tell us who’s the next threat, since clearly they are so much smarter than those who have that thankless job now.
I think the question is why would Trump sign legislation making it EASIER for people with mental illnesses to purchase as many assault weapons as they want?
That way, we don’t have to depend on a tip to a hotline whose number isn’t even published about some person who has already been investigated many times by the state of Florida and his local sheriff’s office.
I would be fine if the FBI arrested every single alt right and right power poster who posted anything at all threatening on those alt right and white power websites. I would like it to be impossible for them to purchase any gun.
And I would hope that alphawolf1 might tell me why almost one year ago today Trump made it easier for people with mental illnesses to purchase assault weapons and why the entire Republican Congress applauded him.
I would frame that issue a little differently. Let’s not trumpet Obama as a brave gun-control proponent. That measure belongs to the school of, ‘let’s show the public we can make at least this one teeny step toward gun-control.’ It made some 75,000 citizens — those whose degree of mental illness requires them to assign the mgt of their fin affairs to a proxy — unable to buy a firearm. And Trump reversed it, essentially trumpeting the message to the populace, ‘No, we will not give way on even the teeniest measure of fed gun control!’
But I agree with you in principle. I think the populace is ready to flout Trump’s [Congress’s] contrarian position, & support a larger step at this point. But to make our voices heard, I think we are going to have to jump onboard one of these No-NRA-$ efforts that singles out & promises to vote against any legislator who accepts NRA support. Studies would have us believe it is only symbolic — that NRA$ does not swing elections– but I think this sort of boycott may free NRA members to vote with the conscience that polls show they have.
How about local law enforcement did they not pay numerous visits to the house . I guess the Deep State is not so deep . Did he cross state lines with the weapon ? No . Okay the system failed why is there a system .
What system is there in Japan . What system is there in England .
Tell you what, get off Diane’s page go on Facebook and tell me what the system should be . Here is a sample. A friend had put up a post for gun control . This was a reply .
“one of the reasons that the UN and the globalists haven’t been able to force their will on us is because of the number of guns we own. And yes, the US Citizenry can be a formidable force when you consider we have over 300,000,000 firearms. About 15,000,000 AR-15s alone. Look at the insurgents in the Middle East, they’ve been a pain in the ass for 20+ years. We might not win but we will make anyone that has thoughts of trying to take over have second thoughts.”
Nothing delusional in that statement . That person owns two AR 15s
Does he wrap his head in tin foil to keep the deep state out.
Are you kidding me?! The FBI is supposed to track every troubled teenager in the U.S.? First we get people who scream about government overreach and then they turn around and scream when they’re not there. Does anyone really think the FBI can protect us from every potential shooter? I would think it would be much easier to enact gun control legislation that would at the very least severely limit access to military grade hardware.
How many more times do we as teachers, have to be ignored? This is wrong. I can’t tell you the number of times, even when I was teaching at fifth grade level at the elementary school my words were ignored. We know our students better than anyone. When will we be listened to?
I’m with you. I teach 7th grade. An educated eye can spot the psychopaths and schizophrenics at this age. But no one wants to hear it. It opens a can of worms. Psychopaths are dangers to society, even if they never go so far as to shoot up a school. It scares me to see these kids being launched into the world with no warning label or anything. People marry them, hire them, get impregnated by them, etc. and don’t learn what they’ve bargained for until, sometimes, it’s too late. Science increasingly shows that psychopathy is an organic brain disorder, not an emotional state that can be cured by love, good parenting and counseling, or even by drugs.
I read the article at the non-paywalled Tampa Bay Times. This was my comment:
It is interesting that none of the cogent discussion & well-considered comments so far mention the gun culture/ laws in FL. Surely that is a factor here? We all seem well aware of the importance of providing funds for & access to mental-health/ gen soc support for troubled youth, via the pubsch sys, the soc-welf sys, perhaps even via gen-avail affordable healthcare (tho that hasnt yet been mentioned). & commenters seem equally aware that even were all these services perfectly available, mistakes can be made, brain science is young & the red-flags of a potential mass-killer are not easily known/ seen.
Think one step further: even if we were able to flawlessly identify potential mass-shooters by earlyteen-years, & had the political will to commit unlimited funds to support them medically/ socially, we would still be in defensive mode. We cannot jail people – or place them indefinitely in lockdown mental wards – for crimes they have not yet committed. We need to consider the culture created by stand-your-ground, concealed carry, no gun licences, AR-15’s/ammo OK to purchase at age 17 – etc.
“We need to consider the culture created by stand-your-ground, concealed carry, no gun licences, AR-15’s/ammo OK to purchase at age 17 – etc.”
That culture is just a part of the death and destruction machine that is the federal government with its military and security forces. Forces that have killed millions of innocents since Viet Nam in our illegal foreign wars of aggression which have been cheered on, sis boom bah, by the vast majority of the citizenry. We are just reaping what we’ve sown for the last 50 years in the death and destruction machine that is the US military and the foreign “policy” machinations.
Thank you, Duane.
As Malcolm X said upon hearing that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, this is all chickens coming home to roost… And you can add in all the stories about Russian bots setting those poor, innocent, exceptional Americans against each other, and winning the election for Pooty-Poo… so unlike how we’ve treated the elections in Russia and other countries for decades!
And if you’ve any doubt of that, check out the cover and cover article of the July, 15, 1996 issue of Time Magazine… “Yanks To The Rescue,” indeed…
KarmaVille offers a harsh welcome to all of us Exceptionalists and poor, victimized Americans…
Michael, yes the US messed with others’ elections. So we should allow Russia to mess with ours? Do you care to protect our republic, or do you think our sins obligate us not to put up a vigorous defense and let the Russians tip the scales for the Republicans indefinitely? (It was tipping the scales this time; next time what’s to prevent it from being outright vote theft?)
Your either or proposition doesn’t hold water. The question you raise does not have to have only two sides. One can condemn the US meddling in other countries’ affairs (and there have been far too many times that has occurred) but still wish to protect the integrity of the US elections. Hell, I’m way more concerned about vote tampering with proprietary electronic voting machines that are controlled, literally, by the manufacturer who most certainly has a certain political leaning.
Duane, I agree that you can do both. But it sounded to me that Michael was almost welcoming Russian meddling as a sort of penance for our past sins (perhaps I misread him). I think that’s a dangerous way of thinking, and reveals an all-too-common exaggeration of American evil among many progressives–one that I think stems from a lack of historical and global perspective. Mildly evil regimes seem to me to be the norm in the big picture. I’ll grant that the U.S. may be an even mix of good and bad, but that makes it positively saintly by the standards of the family of nations. And certainly in comparison with Russia, we’re the good guys.
And I disagree with your perspective on the US’s being one of the “good guys”. Since the end of WW2 the US has meddled in so many country’s affairs, with millions of deaths as a result. How can the US be one of the “good guys” with so much blood on her hands?
I teach medieval and early modern world history. Even looking its many flaws squarely in the face, he US is the pinnacle of humane, law-abiding government compared to every regime anywhere prior to 1950. Americans, both Left and Right, seem blind to proportions. We are here-centric, and now-centric. We need to have better curriculum to fix this –and we need to read more widely, not just Daily Kos and the Nation and Lies My Teacher Told Me and Howard Zinn (valuable though they are). Humans are a nasty, difficult lot. Machiavelli is wise. It seems to me Jefferson and Co. produced a miracle, even if it’s far from perfection.
All this goes to prove that it is not tighter background checks needed . Not mental illness certainly there were enough warnings , but there were no or few warnings in Vegas .
It is the guns plain and simple . I would say if you own a bolt action rifle your a sportsman . You own a pistol for protection, okay . You own a semi automatic , that in itself shows an emotional problem .
Ummmmm, no Joel, it doesn’t “in itself show an emotional problem”. My shotguns are all semi-automatic and by law one is only allowed to have one chambered and three in the magazine when bird hunting. The magazine can hold up to 7 shells (depending upon size).
I consider myself an ethical sportsman who understands what ethical gun ownership and handling are. Unfortunately there are many gun owners that do not fit that description.
Mercedes Schneider posted the story of a young man from Minnesota, John LaDue, who was prevented from carrying out a mass shooting in 2014. Despite not commiting a crime, he accepted a plea bargain to a felony conviction.
Within her post, Schneider provides a link to the aftermath of his conviction. It’s quite a read.
http://www.startribune.com/john-ladue-works-to-build-a-life-in-a-city-where-he-planned-to-kill/411587345/
I figure that in 36 years in my classroom, I taught about 5,000 kids. Those numbers help to describe a spectrum of human behavior in young people which is wide enough from which to draw some conclusions about what’s “normal”. We recognize which kids are outliers, as did Nikolas Cruz’s teachers and classmates. What’s really hard is what to do about them, and how to help.
There’s an Instagram account called “teachermisery.” She posted something this morning called “Venting time,” where teachers are sharing their most horrible student experiences where the student received little to no discipline. She’s hoping some news media outlets might take up challenge and write an article on how bad it is out there.