02-20-2018, 01:52 PM
(02-20-2018, 01:02 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Very good point. The people all had actual interactions with him and Social Services even deemed him 'low risk'.
There's no doubt that the FBI - by their own admission - botched the process and relaying of information, but there were countless opportunities for others in positions of power to take action long before that.
Those who take it a step farther and blame the Mueller/Russia investigation are really grasping for straws. There are multitudes of ongoing investigations that are always going on in the FBI, which require manpower...so it's curious when people single out the Special Counsel investigation as the primary factor in the FBI's failure in this shooting. Partisanship at it's worst and why I generally hate politics.
My wife's day job is working in school administration, so the issue of school/child safety gets talked about a lot in our house. The fact that the real focus of every conversation about this topic isn't on what reasonable steps we can take make it more difficult for these tragedies to happen in the future, is disappointing as hell.
(02-20-2018, 01:29 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Here's the rub: what needs to be done won't be reasonable to a sizable swath of people. The discussion around gun control with school shootings is, in all honesty, pointless. I've said so several times. What really needs to happen is an investment in public education so that our schools have the resources to work with students in a way they need and deserve. Federal spending has been going up, but state spending has been cut in many places making things difficult. Hell, the high school here is currently ~500 students over capacity and there is currently no plan in place to relieve that in the next 5 years. In one of the fastest growing municipalities in Virginia.
When educators can't devote time to students due to a lack of resources, they slip through the cracks. When we don't have school counselors, students can slip through the cracks. When these students slip through the cracks, we can get school shootings.
I completely agree with you both. There is a lot that could have been done to prevent this. All of these things could be done in the future as well. As I stated above, at your request Matt, the school district's own policy prevented Cruz's numerous criminal acts from being reported to law enforcement. Here's the latest person pointing out how many times this kid was referred to school authorities.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/florida-shooter-former-friend-gma_us_5a8c1890e4b0117adf71f83f
As for social services, they clearly didn't do their job at all if they described this kid as low risk. He engaged in just about every red flag behavior there is, killing animals, threatening people both in person and on social media, prone to violence, obsessed with guns and knives. I also heard he was a cutter, which is much rarer in males than females. The behavior is usually linked to childhood sexual abuse, especially in females. In men it's a huge red flag.
Numerous services failed this kid and all of his victims. As you both state, the gun is the lowest hanging fruit in the story and also the one least likely to be addressed in the way some want it to be. The actual culprits in this incident are identifiable and fixable.
