The Answer to Systematic Law Enforcement Failure is Not More Laws

The horrific school shooting in Florida has elicited the same responses from the same people.  Truth be told, there are no easy answers. Or even hard answers.

What adds to the horror is the realization that it was eminently preventable, and should have been prevented. Not by different laws, or more laws, but by merely minimally competent exercise of existing law enforcement authority.  The hours since the shooting have revealed systematic government failures at every level. The school administration, yes, but especially local law enforcement and especially especially the FBI.

The local police responded to 39–yes, 39–separate calls about shooter Nikolas Cruz, yet he was free to buy guns and to kill indiscriminately. Cruz was a textbook case of a dangerous threat who scared the bejezus out of everyone who came in contact with him. But he skated time after time after time.

Even more shockingly, the FBI had at least two separate warnings about Cruz. Very specific warnings.

One warning pointed them to a YouTube video on which Cruz had made threatening and disturbing comments and identified himself. But the FBI claims it couldn’t find him.

The response to the second warning suggests they didn’t try very hard.  This one came more than a month ago from someone “close to” Cruz and specifically stated that he intended to shoot up a school.  If they knew someone close to him, they should have had no problem finding him, right?

Well, that would require that they tried. And today FBI director Wray admitted that the agency had not lifted a finger in response to this very specific threat.  Not. A. Finger.

After all, the FBI obviously had more important things to do. Like fight furiously to protect disclosure of its actions before, during, and after the issuance of the FISA warrant against Carter Page.  Priorities, dontcha know.

I am literally nauseated–yes, literally–at the juxtaposition between the FBI’s appalling inaction in Florida and its frenzied actions in DC.

And this is not the first time someone that someone on the FBI’s radar has committed mass murder–Orlando, San Bernardino, NY bike path, the Tsarnaevs. And why is Stephen Paddock a mystery to them to this day? Perhaps they have derailed many more plots, but this litany of false negatives is beyond disturbing.

What’s the point of passing new laws when those who would be responsible for enforcing them and the existing laws are capable of such systematic failures of omission and commission?

That is not a rhetorical question. The institutional decay in the United States is beyond obvious. Yet the institutions fight tooth and nail to avoid accountability. Before entrusting these institutions with any more power, it would be far better to fix them–which may require a root-and-branch restructuring–so that we can be confident that they can responsibly exercise the vast powers they already wield.  To say that no such confidence is warranted today is beyond cavil.