# data[].attributes.headline
Background: Why do school shootings keep happening in the United States?

# data[].attributes.subject
Background: Why do school shootings keep happening in the United States?

# data[].attributes.body
Statistics show "There are more guns than people. The U.S. population is about 334 million and the number of guns in the U.S. is more than 390 million"

Mass shooting are categorized by bullying and domestic terrorism. Bullying plays a part into it since schools need to focus more on bullying prevention. States like Texas, have made it easier to obtain and access guns. Guns that are especially dangerous to own make screening a person so important.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The first thought that raced through William Pelfrey Jr.'s mind when he heard the breaking news about the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was typical of any parent with young kids.

"It made me want to get into my vehicle and drive to their schools," said Pelfrey, Ph.D., an expert in the field of homeland security, terrorism and radicalization and a professor of homeland security/emergency preparedness and criminal justice in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. "From a professional perspective, it reminded me there are too many people with guns, the wrong people with guns and that nothing is going to change."

Guns are now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No other developed economy has as many violent firearm deaths as the U.S., according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

"School shootings happen in the U.S. at an alarming rate, but they rarely happen elsewhere in the world. Eighty or 90 percent of all the school shootings in the world happen in the U.S. They are concentrated here," Pelfrey said.

How did the U.S. get to this point and what can be done? Pelfrey fields those questions and more with VCU News.
Why does this keep happening?
It's a simple question, but the answers are extremely complicated. There are some political overtones to it. Guns are ubiquitous in the U.S. There are more guns than people. The U.S. population is about 334 million and the number of guns in the U.S. is more than 390 million (according to a report by the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based organization). We have the highest civilian gun ownership in the world by a huge margin. That's an extraordinary number relative to the rest of the world. The next countries that have as many guns are war-torn countries like Serbia or Yemen.

Another element is school safety is not as high as it should be. It's easy to maintain basic school safety but not everybody does a good job of that.

A third element is social media, a component that revolves around how people make it OK on social media to act on violence. There is a faction of government, particularly a right-wing government element, that condones or encourages violence. They do so in an oblique way saying something like, "Our country is under threat. We have to stand up and protect our country. We need to take up arms to defend our country, our way of life." When you do that, you are condoning acts that are dangerous. The U.S. border is populated by a lot of citizens who have dubbed themselves border protection and they stand at the border with guns waiting for someone to illegally cross the border and they take them into custody even though they are not law enforcement.
How do you categorize mass shootings?
Some are artifacts of bullying. A victim of bullying decides they are going to respond with extreme violence, and it's usually not against their perpetrators. It's a show of force to demonstrate they won't be bullied again. They can stand up for themselves. That describes Sandy Hook and Columbine and some other shootings.

The second category of mass shootings is domestic terrorism. Those people had been self-radicalized on social media and believe their actions represent a higher good. What they are doing is for a bigger purpose than themselves. They are willing to die, almost like a suicide terrorist, to further the goals of the theology they support.

A lot of people don't fit into either category. The mass shooting era began with Charles Whitman in 1966 when he climbed a bell tower at the University of Texas and started shooting people. He did that because he had a tumor in his brain. There was no kind of pattern, but it created a behavioral matrix that has been followed by any number of people in the U.S.
How easy is it to buy a gun?
In the U.S., you can walk into a gun store and buy as many assault rifles as you want if you have cash and are over 18 and you meet just a couple of other loose criteria. Guns are so easily obtained that it's easy to commit violent crime. We don't do a good job in our criminal justice system of prohibiting people that probably shouldn't have them from securing guns.

In most countries there are tests you have to take. You have to demonstrate you need a gun for a specific reason. You have to pass a gun ownership exam to show you can use it safely. You have to maintain license requirements. We don't do any of that in the U.S. We are going the other way. Texas last year made it easier for people to get a gun in what was already an incredibly permissive state.
What types of guns are especially dangerous to own?
Assault weapons - assault rifles and assault pistols. We don't track who buys them. You go into a gun store and buy a gun. A criminal background check is run, but no one keeps track of what you bought or how much you paid for it or what you do with it when you walk out the door. You could buy 20 assault rifles, drive to Washington, D.C., and sell them and nobody knows it because there is no reporting mechanism to identify that you sold the guns.

It is a crime to sell a gun to a convicted felon or to take them out of state to sell. But our penalties are so lax that it's not a deterrent. A straw buyer is a person who buys guns legally and then illegally sells them for profit. There are a small number of gun stores that welcome straw buyers and subsequently represent easy funnels for guns in illegal locations. Straw buyers go to stores where they know they can walk in with $30,000 or $40,000 in cash and walk out with a bunch of pistols and assault rifles and go back to the streets and sell those guns, especially in cities with restrictive gun laws. That's one of the cheap mechanisms for guns getting into the hands of criminals.
Why is screening a person who wants to buy a gun so important?
There are people who should have red flags that would preclude gun ownership, but we don't have that in place. We could look over the past 20 or so years at some of the major school shootings like Parkwood (Florida); Newtown (Connecticut); Columbine (Colorado); Uvalde (Texas); even the shooting in Buffalo (New York). These were people that had a history of mental illness or a history of being bullied and were threatening to lash out. People don't seem to connect the risk factors to gun ownership and the propensity for subsequent violence. And that is just a tragedy.
What is the role of social media in all of this?
It has a powerful role because of far-right extremism. The Buffalo shooter was a self-radicalized domestic terrorist. He had a strongly held belief about the infringement of races on the Caucasian race. He was an avid follower of far-right extremists' diatribe and used some of what he found as rationalization to act and commit violence.

Not true for every shooter. In Columbine, Newtown, Uvaldi, these were bullied misfits. They didn't fit in groups and had a history of being marginalized by their peers. They found a different path for getting even and that was through violence. But there is a different population and I believe it's one of the most dangerous threats to the U.S. and that is far-right extremists, which inspired far-right violent extremists. Social media has a tremendous role in that. There is no single bad guy we can legitimize or take out. There are hundreds of podcasts and thousands of self-proclaimed thought leaders and they write really nasty, vicious stuff and have followers. Some of those people act on what they read. No government entity does a good job counter-messaging extremists.
How does bullying play into this?
Schools don't do a great job with bullying prevention. One of my areas of research is bullying and cyberbullying. I've worked with schools, and we talk about bullying identification. Schools don't do that until it's too late. Schools need to adopt bullying and cyberbullying identification measures and then practice them. The best tactic I've seen is analogous to the "see something, say something" messaging that was rampant in New York after 9/11. That same logic can be applied in schools to enable citizens to get involved in terrorism prevention. Students can be empowered to identify bullies and then the school can come in to support fellow students.
Some people talk about arming teachers or school administrators. What do you think of that as a way of prevention?
Several years ago, Virginia considered doing that. I did a report for the Department of Criminal Justice Services in Virginia on the merits and risks of arming school personnel. Most high schools have an armed resource officer on scene, but most middle and elementary schools don't. Arming teachers or school personnel is an incredibly dangerous enterprise that could lead to the death of that person because if police respond to a shooting and see someone with a gun, they are going to shoot them. Or, the teacher could accidentally shoot another staff member or police officer or, in the worst case, a student.

At Uvalde, there was a police resource officer on scene, at Columbine a school resource officer was on scene, at Parkland a school resource officer was on scene. If a trained police officer can't prevent a school shooting, what are the chances that a teacher who is not well trained can prevent a school shooting? I think the odds are pretty low. I think the risk dramatically outweighs any potential benefits.
Can you talk about the opposite views we have in the U.S. about guns?
We live in a country with two competing paradigms. One thought paradigm is that everybody needs guns and then we will all be safe. The other is the exact opposite. Nobody should have guns and we will all be safe. Those two paradigms cannot coexist. They are diametrically opposed. But our political structure is such that they can't be reconciled.

After the Sandy Hook shooting there was a huge motivation for gun control, limiting who could buy guns and the kind of guns people could buy. That faded away rapidly. I expect the same thing will happen here, and it's depressing to say that, but I see very little political will to enact any meaningful changes.

Mass shootings are going to happen again. It's a pattern. School shootings and mass shootings happen about every year or two in the U.S. and I guarantee that there is going to be another one in a year and another one after that and nothing is going to change until enough people develop a political will to support meaningful gun changes.
What predictions do you have for the future when it comes to gun laws?
I expect there will be some change in gun laws, but they won't be substantial. It will provide political cover for some people to say we are doing things, we are making things safer, but they won't make things safer. I expect gun sales will go up even more because people now feel like they have to protect themselves and their family members because the government isn't doing that.

I also expect that there is going to be some investigation into police practices at Uvalde because police didn't go into that school immediately. In fact, several police officers stood outside waiting for reinforcements to arrive. That is going to lead to internal investigation and also police policy changes, which I expect will become popular across the U.S. Many police departments implemented a policy suggesting officers need to go into a school and engage an active shooter no matter what. That didn't happen in Uvalde. As a policing expert, I don't know how that is possible.
Do people use mental health as a scapegoat for these shootings?
Yes, it's an easy target. A lot of people point to mental health and say the U.S. needs more mental health funding. They disregard there was a gun that shot these people. Only a small percentage of these shootings were people that had been diagnosed with a mental illness. We want to rationalize this type of behavior. We want to understand it. We presume that the people who commit these vile acts are disturbed, that they are mentally ill, otherwise they are like us and that's untenable.

It creates an easy political target that allows politicians to rationalize their failure to enact reasonable gun laws. We have laws about who can buy guns - you have to be 18, you can't be a convicted felon. There are guns that are restrictive. It's not legal to sell fully automatic weapons. You can't buy a tank. But whenever reasonable gun restrictions are opposed or discussed, there is a small faction of citizens and politicians that go crazy, and that's a tragedy.

Over the past 50 years there has only been one meaningful law passed limiting guns - the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, passed under President Bill Clinton. That expired 10 years later under a Republican president. When that expired, people began buying guns at a substantially higher rate than ever before. They presumed that under another Democratic president or Congress gun sales would be limited again. So assault rifles, which had been a small portion of gun purchases prior to the ban, became a big part of gun sales.

Estimates are that a quarter to a third of all guns sold now in the U.S. are assault rifle platforms. That is a big number. Seven years after the ban expired, guns sales had doubled. A few years later they doubled again. It's amazing that the ban had a counter-productive effect, which is it dramatically increased gun sales and people's motivations to buy guns, particularly assault rifles.

As a policing expert, there is no reason anyone who is not military or law enforcement should ever have an assault rifle. I come from a family of hunters. Every year we would go hunting. I know rifles and shotguns. An assault rifle is a vastly inferior tool for anything other than shooting people. It's not good for hunting or self-defense. A shotgun or a pistol is more effective. There is no reason for a civilian to have an assault rifle, but they do.

Subscribe to VCU News

Subscribe to VCU News at newsletter.vcu.edu and receive a selection of stories, videos, photos, news clips and event listings in your inbox.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why do school shootings keep happening in the United States?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
VCU homeland security expert William V. Pelfrey Jr. answers this question and more.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why Gun Rights Are Essential In a World of Uncertainty and Scarcity

# data[].attributes.subject
Why Gun Rights Are Essential In a World of Uncertainty and Scarcity

# data[].attributes.body
The right to bear weapons is still a crucial component of personal freedom and allows the ability for self defense in a world of "uncertainty and scarcity." Recent occurrences like the pandemic, political mishaps, and natural calamities have underlined the significance of preparedness and self-sufficiency. Restricting access to firearms would expose people to dangers from criminals and "government overreach." Gun ownership may provide individuals a sense of security and self-reliance in times of crisis.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A common joke in the American gun community goes something like this:

Q: Why do you carry a gun?

A: Because carrying a cop is too heavy.

This humorous quip should not detract from the fact that many individuals in the United States (including me) own and carry a firearm for purely pragmatic reasons. The simplest case for the right to keep and bear arms can be summarized in one sentence: You are ultimately responsible for your own safety and security.

Understanding Gun Rights

This sobering pill can be difficult for many people to swallow but that's reality. Evil exists in this world. Under the right circumstances, people can and will do unspeakable things to each other as any student of history or psychology will know. Those fortunate to live in gated communities and can afford armed security are often oblivious that most other people do not enjoy the same luxuries.

Many violent crimes take place and are over in a matter of seconds (and stopped in seconds that prevent the worst). As another popular saying goes, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." In the United States, depending where you live, police response time ranges from nine minutes to over an hour. Right now, one in five New York police officers are currently out sick due to COVID-19. Police in multiple states have announced they will no longer respond to theft, burglary, and break-ins. Given the current climate, it's not unreasonable to assume police will take much longer to arrive, if they do at all, should someone dial 911.

Furthermore, Americans need to understand there is no legal obligation for the police to protect you, which is affirmed by the Supreme Court and multiple lower courts. (See Castle Rock v. Gonzales, Warren v. District of Columbia, and Lozito v. New York City). Should the police fail to arrive or protect you when needed, you can't even sue for neglect.

Thus, given the legal and logistical realities, taking the initiative to protect yourself should be as sensible as any other proactive measure such as having a fire extinguisher in the home or jumper cables ready in the back of the car. Should disaster strike, preparedness will make all the difference in the world. Protecting your one and only life deserves no less preparation and investment, especially in our increasingly complex and uncertain world.

Chaos Can, and Will, Strike

Americans are fortunate to live in a country with mostly stable institutions. But there are vivid examples when segments of society break down, many in not-too-distant memory. In widespread civil disturbances such as the 1992 LA riots or the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina, Florence, and Harvey, the authorities were overwhelmed and unscrupulous individuals took advantage of the chaos to prey on others.

Going by sheer numbers, almost all of us will encounter at least one black swan in our lifetime. The current COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath are already the most trying times on the lives and livelihoods of Americans since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Should an even deadlier natural or man-made catastrophe take place, if the authorities haven't been incapacitated, displaced, or destroyed completely, whatever personnel and resources are left will be prioritized to protect high-ranking government officials, their inner-circle, and critical government facilities and infrastructure.

The economist Thomas Sowell reminds us, "The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it." Security also happens to be a scarce resource. There's simply not enough boots on the ground that can guarantee all 300 million Americans will be protected at all times from all threats. In every emergency, tough decisions will have to be made. From what we know about past and present " continuity of government" plans, ruling elites will be evacuated to a secure bunker in some undisclosed location while John Q. Public will be left to fend for himself.

Legal and Ethical Foundations

Every American schoolchild is taught that everyone is equal before the law. Given this fundamental axiom, it's not unfair to demand that the average American citizen have access to the same means of security and protection that government officials-who are our servants, not overlords-insist on having for themselves (while using taxpayer money). Under the American political system, the right of self-defense cannot be limited to only a privileged few. No one, regardless of their socioeconomic status, can deny fundamental rights to others.

The right to life is closely intertwined with the right of self-preservation. John Locke, a major influence on the philosophical foundations of the US Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, described the right of self-preservation as a "fundamental law of nature" in his Second Treatise of Civil Government:

The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man's life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common-law of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.

The political philosophy of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers contributed a unique element to American political theory: Fundamental rights do not come from the government. Human beings possess them already simply by virtue of being free and that includes a pre-existing, natural right of self-defense and self-preservation. As the Declaration of Independence memorably emphasizes, these natural rights are "unalienable" which means they cannot be taken or given away. They are permanent and apply in all times and all places to all human beings, with or without the Second Amendment or any other statutory pronouncement.

" Self-evident truths" and similar conclusions are found in other schools of thought. The ethical intuitionist philosopher Michael Huemer also highlights an interlocking relationship between the right of self-defense and the right to own a gun:

It is possible for a right to be both fundamental and derivative. Derivative rights are usually related to fundamental rights as means to the protection or enforcement of the latter, though this need not be the only way in which a right may be derivative. I claim that the right to own a gun is both fundamental and derivative; however, it is in its derivative aspect-as derived from the right of self-defense-that it is most important.

Even without the existence of absolute rights (which Huemer declines to acknowledge for guns or any other right), he nevertheless persuasively argues:

1. There is a strong prima facie right to own a gun

2. Prohibiting private gun ownership constitutes both a major interference in gun owners' plans for their own lives as well as a significant violation of their right of self-defense

Using a memorable thought experiment, Huemer shows how gun control laws that prevent a person from accessing or exercising the means of self-defense is akin to a criminal accomplice who holds a victim down while the actual murderer carries out the foul deed. By preventing the victim from escaping or exercising his right to self-defense, the accomplice's action is still "if not equivalent to murder, something close to murder in degree of wrongness, even though he neither kills nor injures the victim." In a follow-up thought experiment, Huemer adds:

...except that the victim has a gun by the bed, which he would, if able, use to defend himself from the killer. As the killer enters the bedroom, the victim reaches for the gun. The accomplice grabs the gun and runs away, with the result that the killer then stabs his victim to death.

Most reasonable individuals will intuitively recognize what the accomplice did was morally wrong. In both scenarios, the accomplice's actions purposely prevented the victim from defending himself. If gun control laws have the same effect, it logically follows that they are "about equally serious as a violation of the right of self-defense."

Other Forms of Self-Defense

Fortunately for Americans, most of us still have access to a wide range of choices when it comes to self-defense. While it is understandable to be reluctant to pick up a gun, it is worth mentioning alternatives such as martial arts, tasers, and pepper spray are often severely limited by range, efficiency, or effectiveness.

Even if she is proficient in martial arts (which requires years of training), a 5-foot, 100-pound woman will be overwhelmed if she faces multiple attackers who weigh twice as much. On the other hand, she can ably defend herself with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, which is a popular weapon for many Americans, including women, because of its light weight, low recoil, accuracy, reliability, ergonomics, and ease of customization to fit any shooter regardless of size and stature.

Compared to other options, firearms are the most practical and effective way for the average American to secure his or her life, liberty, and property. As I emphasized in a previous essay:

From the colonists winning independence from Great Britain to African-Americans vindicating their civil rights, the role of the gun is inseparable from American identity. The gun is the ultimate multipurpose tool that empowers its user with the means to put food on the table, as well as preserve one's life, whether against common street criminals or government tyranny.

In these uncertain times, both the pragmatic and philosophical case for gun rights are as strong as ever.

Many Americans, especially minorities, have realized the need for self-protection in times of social upheaval and breakdown. It is unfortunate that it took a tragedy as extreme as the COVID-19 pandemic to remind people that we should never take peace, prosperity, and freedom for granted. But millions have now taken the first steps to defend themselves and their loved ones. They should know they are in good company.

From what I've witnessed firsthand and experienced to date, the American gun community is strongly supportive and always welcoming towards first-time gun owners and anyone remotely curious about firearms regardless of their background. (See our plethora of welcome and orientation videos for newcomers brought in by the recent gun-buying surge). Our country's gun culture and people's civic virtue reinforce each other. In the spirit of Tocqueville, civil society has stepped up in the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrated exemplary acts of charity. It's only natural that the gun community is also actively participating by sharing knowledge with their fellow Americans and ensuring new gun owners are comfortably onboarded.

I am confident these new gun owners will learn how to handle their weapons responsibly, discover the joys of shooting, and become future staunch defenders of the Second Amendment (and hopefully the rest of the Bill of Rights as well). Our past is full of inspiring examples of Americans emerging stronger and freer after overcoming crises that tear the fabric of society and test our ideals. In these " times that try men's souls," let us not forget the precious legacy bequeathed to us.

This page relies heavily on JavaScript.

Please, enable JavaScript and reload the page to enjoy our modern features.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Gun Rights Are Essential In a World of Uncertainty and Scarcity | Aaron Tao

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The economist Thomas Sowell reminds us, "The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it." Security also happens to be a scarce resource. There's simply not enough boots on the ground that can guarantee all 300 million Americans will be protected at all times from all threats.

# data[].attributes.headline
More firearms do not keep people safe, hard numbers show. Why do so many Americans believe the opposite?

# data[].attributes.subject
More firearms do not keep people safe, hard numbers show. Why do so many Americans believe the opposite?

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/

# data[].attributes.headline
Guns keep us safe: "Why do people think another law will stop a criminal from committing a crime?"

# data[].attributes.subject
Guns keep us safe: "Why do people think another law will stop a criminal from committing a crime?"

# data[].attributes.body
It is going steps backwards from the essential discussion about the need for access to mental health information, the need for mental health professionals to be consulted, and the apparent need for the urgent removal of any limits on one's right to self-defense.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Evil walks among us, hidden by a smile, a handshake, a pat on the back, an offer of help. Always looking for the weak, the vulnerable, the gullible, the one in the wrong place at the wrong time. Prey.

Bad things happen to good people when and where it happens, we have no say as to the time or place. All we can do is to be prepared for the possibility of having to deal with that evil.

Prepared, not paranoid. Prepared.

There is no law that can protect us from such evil as that which occurred in El Paso, Dayton and so many other places. Particularly, when that law prohibits the law-abiding from acting in their own self-defense, it makes them victims without recourse. The daily shootings in our major cities, especially Chicago and Baltimore, highlight those facts. Those doing this evil are criminals. Criminals, by virtue of the term, ignore the law.

Laws are made not to deter crime, because criminals do not fear the law, but to classify criminal conduct and provide punishment for that conduct. Laws do not protect us.

In El Paso, the Walmart was in a gun-free zone. The law-abiding do not carry in a gun-free zone, they respect the wishes of the property owner and the law. Laws authorizing gun-free zones make unwilling victims out of the law-abiding.

There are laws that bar felons from firearms ownership and possession. Yet they still have firearms.

It was an Obama executive order that protected the Parkland shooter when his violent conduct resulted in at least 35 contacts with law enforcement and multiple suspensions from school. The school had to take him back. He was never examined by a mental health professional. The executive order's purpose was to keep minors out of the criminal justice system and in school, including those with the potential to harm their fellow students.

The Dayton shooter was of the same ilk. He was forthright in his absorption with death, violence and even had kill and rape lists of his fellow students. One girl finally called the police, who removed him from school. He was suspended for a year. Then he was allowed to return, without a mental health examination. His fascination with death and violence continued after high school.

There is no participation by mental health professionals in the evaluation of the individual in such cases.

A change in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act law would be necessary to allow the courts and law enforcement access to any mental health records. We already have background checks.

Illegally obtained weapons have not been used in any of the mass killings before or since Sandy Hook. Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, obtained his weapons by killing his mother for the key to the locked safe containing the firearms.

What is missing today is to allow the law-abiding to protect themselves, no matter what state we are in, whether resident or just visiting, as is our constitutional right.

Why do people think another law will stop a criminal from committing a crime?

Any argument regarding banning the weapons used is a red herring. It takes the focus away from the necessary discussion concerning the need to access mental health information, the need to involve mental health professionals to evaluate behavior, and the obvious need to immediately remove the unconstitutional bars to one's right of self-defense.

Gun-free zones and insane laws barring self-defense with a firearm have enabled the killing of innocents.

The attacks by Palestinian terrorists on Israeli schools ended in the 1970s when Israel mandated armed school staff and armed guards.

In the U.S., the very people who should demand such protection for our children are silenced by the National Education Associations, American Federation of Teachers and the Democrats, for reasons beyond comprehension.

It was armed police officers who stopped the Dayton shooting in less than 30 seconds. Such is the exception, not the standard.

The El Paso shooter could have been stopped just as quickly, had the Walmart not been in a gun-free zone.

Being armed in public increases your chances of survival and decreases by many orders of magnitude the survivability of the criminal. Criminals don't like targets who fight back. They seek easy prey.

It is estimated that more than three million law-abiding Americans carry a firearm daily, concealed or openly. Many crimes are stopped daily by the law-abiding using their legally owned firearms.

A firearm is a tool, nothing more. It can be used for evil; it can be used for good.

The Supreme Court in its Heller decision recognized that the AR-15 and similar rifles are in common use for recreational shooting, hunting, and for self-defense by both civilians and law enforcement, and that the 30-round magazine is also a common attribute. There are more than three million AR-15s in private ownership. It is time to stop chasing that red herring and focus absolutely on the evil in the shooter.

You have the obligation and right to protect yourself and your family under the Second Amendment, wherever you may be. Demand that right be honored by every state and locality.

Do not fear evil. Focus on preparedness, and prepare to meet evil where and when it happens.
The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Evil walks among us, hidden by a smile, a handshake, a pat on the back, an offer of help. Always looking for the weak, the vulnerable, the gullible, the one in the wrong place at the wrong time. Prey. Bad things happen to good people when and where it happens, we have no say as to the time or place.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mental health becomes focal point of Senate gun framework

# data[].attributes.subject
Mental health becomes focal point of Senate gun framework

# data[].attributes.body
Senate plan calling for more financing for mental health initiatives and better mental health record reporting to the federal background check system. In other words, they are attempting to tackle the issue of gun violence by treating the underlying mental health issues that may lead to it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mental health becomes focal point of Senate gun framework

Experts say expanding access to care won't reduce homicides

Posted June 15, 2022 at 5:57pm

Mental health advocates are walking a fine line on the Senate's bipartisan gun violence package framework - happy that it contains long sought-after provisions to expand access to treatment while stressing that there is little connection between gun homicides and mental illness.

A framework released Sunday calls for expanding access to mental health care across the country, with gun control opponents framing those provisions as part of the solution to reducing mass shootings.

But experts say expanding access to care likely won't do much to reduce gun homicides because the vast majority of people with mental illness will never become violent.

It could, however, have an impact on suicides, which make up more than half of gun deaths in the United States, and could support survivors of gun violence, who can experience anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

"'Fix mental health' is a good slogan for different public health problems that intersects with gun violence at the edges," said Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. Clinicians have long described gun violence as a public health problem created by easy access to guns.

Still, it's hard to say no to any attempt to fix America's broken mental health care system, which leaves millions of people unable to access care every year.

"It's complicated to have both of these conversations at the same time, but it's the conversation we're stuck with because mental health only comes up when we have a horrible mass casualty shooting," said Swanson, who has studied the connection, or lack thereof, between violence and serious mental illness.

About 4 percent of community violence can be attributed to people with serious mental illness, Swanson said, and when they do become violent, there are often other factors at play, like poverty, substance use or a history of child abuse.

More often victims than perpetrators

While about 8 percent of people who perpetrate mass shootings have a history of lifetime psychotic symptoms, according to a 2021 study, deaths from such shootings make up less than 1 percent of firearm deaths in the United States.

Instead, people who are mentally ill are more likely to be the victims of violence than the general population, experts say.

But at the insistence of Republicans, mental health overhaul has become a focal point of the gun violence package, said Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., who is leading negotiations on behalf of Democrats.

"I'm always worried about too closely tying a conversation about mental illness to a conversation about gun violence," Murphy told CQ Roll Call.

"I think we always risk creating the impression that people with mental illness are prone to violence when the opposite is true - they're actually more likely to be the victims of violence," he said. "But we shouldn't forsake the opportunity to put billions of dollars into new mental health services. So there's a risk, but it's a risk worth managing, given the benefit."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who is working with Murphy to find agreement on legislation, said it is not his intent to stigmatize mental illness.

"Nobody is suggesting that people who are experiencing mental health challenges are violent, but we do know that most gun deaths are suicides," he told CQ Roll Call. "Not everyone experiencing a mental health crisis is going to hurt somebody else, but identifying those people and trying to get them some help before they hurt themselves or others is important, and that's part of what we're trying to do."

The main mental health component of the framework is a proposal by Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., that would provide states with Medicaid funding for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, which treat patients with mental illness and substance use disorders 24/7 and have been shown to expand access to care and decrease homelessness and arrests.

Senators were hoping to release text of legislation this week and vote on a bill before the July Fourth recess.

Increased worries about mental health

Although experts dispute the link between mental illness and gun homicides, experts are increasingly worried about the state of mental health in the U.S., especially after the pandemic caused isolation, death and illness.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and children in particular are seeing increased rates of depression, anxiety and suicide attempts.

"If that is included, that could really be a game-changer for mental health. ... Having that resource available in communities can go a long way to address mental health access issues," Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer of government relations for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said about the Stabenow-Blunt proposal.

Wesolowski said NAMI has been working with congressional offices about not conflating mental illness with gun violence and has received reassuring responses.

"No one would argue that we don't have a significant mental health crisis in this country we should be making investments in, but we should do it to help save lives, not because it will have a tangible impact on mass shootings," she said.

Blunt, who is viewed as a strong advocate for mental health in the Senate, cheered the inclusion of his bill in the framework in a statement, writing that "making sure people who are experiencing a mental health crisis can get treatment before they harm themselves or others is critically important to preventing another tragedy."

He added that "it is important to remember that people who do have a mental health issue are more likely to be the victim of a crime than the perpetrator."

But on Tuesday, he told reporters, "I think everybody in our conference, and I believe every member of the Senate, has said these problems at some fundamental level are the failure of the mental health delivery system."

Clinicians have for years called gun violence a public health crisis. And while they support expanding access to mental health care, that hasn't been a cornerstone of their recommendations when urging Congress to find a way to stop gun deaths.

The American Psychiatric Association has called on Congress to increase research into firearm violence; require background checks, waiting periods and safe storage of firearms; and allow physicians to make "clinically appropriate inquiries regarding access to firearms."

"A vast majority of firearm violence is not attributed to mental illness," the APA said in a statement. "Rhetoric that argues otherwise will further stigmatize and interfere with people accessing needed treatment without addressing the root causes of firearm violence."

Legislation that passed the House last week, mostly along party lines, would raise the age for purchasing AR-15-style guns from 18 to 21 and require safe storage of firearms. Separate legislation, which passed the House last year, would require background checks on all gun sales. Neither is expected to get a vote in the Senate. Neither bill addressed mental health, although a House committee recently approved separate legislation aimed at improving access to mental health care.

Firearms were involved in 79 percent of all homicides in 2020, which saw the largest firearm homicide rate in more than 25 years, with increases in deaths among Black children and young adults, according to data released by the CDC last month.

Of the more than 45,000 firearm-related deaths in 2020, about 53 percent were suicides.

A CDC official suggested poverty, housing instability, social isolation, job loss and structural racism could have led to an increase in gun deaths, as well as increases in firearm purchases, intimate partner violence and strains in relationships between police and the communities they serve.

Still, the inclusion of mental health provisions in the gun package is hard to reject.

"The opportunity we have here is to radically improve availability and quality of mental health and substance use services around the country," said Chuck Ingoglia, president and CEO of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mental health becomes focal point of Senate gun framework - Roll Call

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Posted June 15, 2022 at 5:57pm Mental health advocates are walking a fine line on the Senate's bipartisan gun violence package framework - happy that it contains long sought-after provisions to expand access to treatment while stressing that there is little connection between gun homicides and mental illness.

# data[].attributes.headline
Former President Barack Obama states his frustration surrounding gun control laws 

# data[].attributes.subject
Former President Barack Obama states his frustration surrounding gun control laws 

# data[].attributes.body
According to Obama, there aren't enough "common-sense gun safety laws" in the country. The biggest disappointment of Mr. Obama's administration, he claimed was his inability to pass gun control legislation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Obama: US gun control laws 'greatest frustration of my presidency' - BBC News

# data[].attributes.headline
What is the solution to gun violence in America?

# data[].attributes.subject
What is the solution to gun violence in America?

# data[].attributes.headline
Another mass shooting highlights America’s stubborn gun control divide

# data[].attributes.subject
Another mass shooting highlights America’s stubborn gun control divide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Another mass shooting highlights America’s stubborn gun control divide | CNN Politics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
America’s shameful tradition of gun violence reared its ugly ahead again Tuesday evening at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia. It’s hard not to view each shooting incident as yet another result of America’s polarized gun debate.

# data[].attributes.headline
"There is no universal school safety solution"

# data[].attributes.subject
"There is no universal school safety solution"

# data[].attributes.body
This article highlights one of the most recent school shootings at an elementary school in Nashville. Police are insufficient, security is dependent on workers, and we need to center on training on school staff.

“There is no universal school safety solution – no one technology will solve all school safety and security issues,” the researchers wrote. “The sheer number of schools and school districts across the country – with different geography, funding, building construction and layout, demographics, and priorities – make each one different.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Semiautomatic gunfire echoed in the hallways of The Covenant School, making a distinct noise teachers there would not soon forget.

That was more than 14 months ago -before three children and three adults were gunned down on Monday in the stately stone school connected to Covenant Presbyterian Church, atop a tree-shrouded hill just south of downtown Nashville.

The active shooter training session ended with live gunfire intended to familiarize school staff with real gunshots if they ever heard them.

"Blanks don't sound the same. They just don't," said security consultant Brink Fidler, whose firm conducted the exercise.

A bullet trap the trainers wheeled around captured the rounds of a semiautomatic pistol and an AR-15-style rifle loaded with real ammunition.

When a handful of teachers heard the very first shot of Monday's rampage they initially mistook it for the din of ongoing construction at the building.

"But then they said, 'When we heard a few more after that we all knew because we had heard it before," said Fidler, a former police officer who did a walk-through of the elementary school with Nashville officials on Wednesday - two days after another massacre in America renewed questions about what schools are doing to protect children and staff against mass murder.

As investigators work to determine the motive for the carnage, students, parents and school leaders across the country are again asking what more can be done to secure schools in the era of active shooter drills, lockdowns and widespread anxiety amid recurring mass shootings.

Fortified school buildings and entrance doors, glass panes coated in bullet-resistant laminate, locked classrooms and heavy surveillance have became a part of life in places where children are supposed to feel inspired to learn.

'Even a robust police response is not enough'

A funeral service for Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9, the first victim to be laid to rest, was held Friday, which would have been the final school day before Easter break for the 200 or so private school students.

The shooter was a former Covenant School student, who also killed William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, both 9; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; Cynthia Peak, a 61-year-old substitute teacher; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian.

Police fatally shot the 28-year-old attacker - who was armed with an AR-15 military-style rifle, a 9 mm Kel-Tec SUB2000 pistol caliber carbine, and a 9 mm Smith and Wesson M&P Shield EZ 2.0 handgun - inside the school about 14 minutes after the shooter fired through locked glass doors to enter the building.

The AR-15 and 9 mm pistol caliber carbine appeared to have 30-round magazines, according to experts who reviewed photos and video released by police.

Officers were on scene at 10:24 a.m. and fatally shot the attacker three minutes later, police said.

"The shooter, confronted in the second floor lobby, didn't even have a chance to get to the classrooms," said CNN analyst Jennifer Mascia, a writer and founding staffer of The Trace, a non-profit focused on gun violence. "That is something that is very reassuring to parents across the country. However, as we see, even a robust police response is not enough."

The attack was the 19th shooting at an American school or university in 2023 in which at least one person was wounded, according to a CNN count. It was the deadliest since the May attack in Uvalde, Texas, left 21 dead. There have been 42 K-12 school shootings since Uvalde, where the gunman fired 100 or so rounds before police breached a classroom more than an hour later and killed the attacker to end the siege.

Once again, children, their parents and school leaders are left struggling with how to stop and handle mass shootings even though such incidents are rare and schools are still quite safe.

"What a lot of school leaders have learned is don't react quickly. You've got a lot of pressure to do something right away but it's really better to be thoughtful," said Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International, a nonprofit school safety firm that has evaluated security at thousands of schools.

"You should assume that you don't have a good picture of what really happened and what didn't. Be very skeptical about claims that this saves lives or people died because of that. In Tennessee no one will have a really accurate picture of what happened there for months."

Coping with the nightmare scenario of a school shooting is now part of the mission to educate and counsel children.

It's been 24 years since the Columbine High School mass shooting left 13 people dead in 1999. And more than a decade since a gunman shot his way through glass at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed six adults and 20 children.

"We keep repeating the same mistakes because people don't know what the same mistakes are," Fidler said. "School resource officers are a great part of the solution. Security laminate - great part of the solution. Cameras - great part of the solution. But if the people in the building don't know what to do, none of that other stuff means anything."

Security 'works because of people'

Mass shootings have helped fuel a multibillion dollar school security industry in recent years - ranging from high-tech surveillance systems to weapon scanners and hand-held emergency panic devices to immediately alert law enforcement and lock down schools.

"The message is really simple and it has been since before Nashville," said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, who was scheduled to speak about school security this weekend at the annual conference of the National School Boards Association in Orlando, Florida. "One of the worst times to make knee jerk policy and administrative actions is after a high profile incident like this when you're in a highly emotional state."

Experts said school officials should not give in to political pressures to take steps that are likely to be ineffective and wasteful of limited resources.

"We've been in schools where, on the positive side, almost every staff member has a two-way walkie talkie, which is good," Trump said. "And we've been in other schools, sometimes in the same district, where they're sitting in a charger and the principal says, 'Well, we have them but I prefer to not use them.' "

He added, "When security works, it works because of people. When it fails, it fails because of people."

Dorn said he has been inundated with emails since Monday from companies "I've never heard of," with offers of technology they claim will heighten security in schools.

"The three things that every school leader better pay a lot of attention to is, we have limited time, energy and budget for safety," Dorn said. "So we can't afford to waste any of that. We can't spend our budget or training time on something that we don't have pretty good evidence actually bears fruit. With the caution that nothing's going to be 100 percent. This idea that we're gonna stop all school shootings; there's just, no country has been able to do that."

Dorn and others pointed to a 2016 school safety technology report from Johns Hopkins University that found there was insufficient evidence to show devices such as weapons detectors and high-tech alarms and sensors helped curb mass shootings.

"There is no universal school safety solution - no one technology will solve all school safety and security issues," the researchers wrote. "The sheer number of schools and school districts across the country - with different geography, funding, building construction and layout, demographics, and priorities - make each one different."

Focus on training school staff

Fidler and others said more resources should be devoted to educating and training students and school staff on recognizing and responding to threats.

"I can't tell you how many of our school clients still have classroom doors that are not lockable from inside the classroom," he said.

Referring to training and preparation for catastrophic school events like a mass shooting, Fidler said: "As a society we suck at this - which is terrible, but we do."

On Wednesday, two days after the massacre, Fidler did a walk-through of the blood-stained school corridors with investigators. "It was hard, man. I'm struggling," the law enforcement veteran of nearly 20 years said Saturday. "Some of that blood belonged to people I know."

Fidler found that upon recognizing they were under attack teachers and staff relied on their training.

The shooter fired multiple rounds into several classroom doors but didn't hit any students inside "because the teachers knew exactly what to do, how to fortify their doors and where to place their children in those rooms," Fidler said.

"Their ability to execute, literally flawlessly, under that amount of stress while somebody is trying to murder them and their children, that is what made the difference here," he said.

"These teachers are the reason those kids went home to their families."

Koonce, the head of the school, had been adamant about training school staff on how to respond during an active shooter situation, Fidler said.

"She understood the severity of the topic and the severity of the teachers needing to have the knowledge of what to do in that situation," he said.

"Katherine went to find out what was happening" when she was shot, Fidler said. "You know, Katherine Koonce, I could have had a lasso around her waist and she would drag me down the hall. She was going to go find out what's going on and try and figure out what's best for her students... She went right to it."

Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake could not confirm how Koonce died but said, "I do know she was in the hallway by herself. There was a confrontation, I'm sure. You can tell the way she is lying in the hallway."

Fidler said teachers covered windows. They shut off lights. Unused medical kits sat on desks.

"Countless teachers had their bleeding control kits out, staged and ready to treat people in their classroom," he recalled.

"The fact that they had the wherewithal to do that. 'Ok, I've got my kids secure. I've got the door locked and barricaded.' And now, as a teacher, to have the wherewithal to remember the last piece, the medical, because we can potentially save a lot of people. They crushed it. They were able to perform under that amount of stress... They were able to recall all this information and put it into practice."

The six shooting victims were trapped in hallways and killed, Fidler said.

"How many teachers in America could walk into their classroom right now and throw a tourniquet on the table and put that on? How many of them could do it?"

His message for anxious parents: "Ask questions. Find out what your kids' school is doing or not doing. And don't stop asking until something's done."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'There is no universal school safety solution.' Nashville attack renews debate over how best to protect students | CNN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Semiautomatic gunfire echoed in the hallways of The Covenant School, making a distinct noise teachers there would not soon forget. That was more than 14 months ago -before three children and three adults were gunned down on Monday in the stately stone school connected to Covenant Presbyterian Church, atop a tree-shrouded hill just south of downtown Nashville.

# data[].attributes.headline
How does stricter gun control laws positively affect gun violence in America? 

# data[].attributes.subject
How does stricter gun control laws positively affect gun violence in America? 

# data[].attributes.headline
Is mental illness the leading reason for gun violence? 

# data[].attributes.subject
Is mental illness the leading reason for gun violence? 

# data[].attributes.body
As years go on, gun violence increasingly rockets as America troubles to find an agreement on gun control laws. In comparison to other countries which have lower gun violence rates to do reduction; such as Australia, Britain, South Africa, and New Zealand.

"There is a direct correlation in states with weaker gun laws and higher rates of gun deaths, including homicides, suicides and accidental killings, according to a January study published by Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit focused on gun violence prevention."