PREDICTABLE DRONING V. MEANINGFUL LESSONS

There are some starkly contrasting lessons in the recent LAX shooting.

Dianne Feinstein trots out her old “I’ll introduce a bill to ban assault rifles” line, as boringly predictable as Harold Stassen throwing his hat in the Presidential election ring in the old days. Some people’s egos just can’t let them see that they’re trying to sell something people are too smart to buy.

Yet another lesson from that incident goes almost unnoticed.  The family of the young man with the broken mind, as soon as they saw signs that he was seriously going to snap, called authorities.  LAPD took it seriously.  They went to the young man’s apartment, and missed him by only minutes.  The miss was not their fault, just a matter of timing and Fate.

Not long after the Columbine atrocity, a young man at a Catholic high school in Concord, New Hampshire made noises about killing his classmates.  The kids he expressed that to took him seriously, and reported him. A search of his locker turned up a stolen .22 revolver and a 500-round brick of ammunition.

Ideal outcome. No shots fired, no blood on the floor.  The kid with the messed-up head got the psychiatric care he needed.

Why? Within the society of that school, administrators and teachers had fostered an attitude of mutual responsibility for safety.  It over-rode the currently widespread “don’t snitch” mentality. We’ll never know how many lives it saved there…and elsewhere, since that scene has been quietly repeated around the country.

Your thoughts?

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