Buffalo And Uvalde - What To Do? My Take, Part I

 (Note.  I have written various posts dealing the subject of guns.  A detailed discussion was done in the 1/12/13 post.  There was additional discussion in the 12/5/15 post, the 3/4/18 post and the recent post of 4/10/22.  All are still up on the blog.)

When I heard about the racist, antisemitic bastard shooting and killing black people who were just out shopping in the supermarket, I was furious.  I knew little about the shooter, but I wanted to see a public execution.  Then, we learned about an evil shooter killing children in an elementary school in Uvalde.  How anyone could shoot ten year old's was simply incomprehensible.  I alternated between extreme anger and sadness/tears.  But, unlike others (commentators and people telling me to write about guns), my anger was directed at the perpetrators, not at guns.  

I suggested that the issue was far more complicated than "guns."  After all, I thought there were issues of school safety and security, social media, violent video games and realistically violent movies and TV shows, dysfunctional families, fatherless families, young alienated loner males, mental health, and a weakening of religious upbringing and involvement in churches and synagogues.  But the mainstream media, and some readers, told me the only real issue was guns. 

A word about the Second Amendment.  I will not debate the meaning of the Second Amendment here.  However, I do acknowledge that no right in the Constitution is absolute.  Not even the First Amendment right to speech.  Also, it would be impossible for me to cover each of the issues set forth in the above paragraph, in this post.  So I will touch on a few, before getting to guns.

Mental health.  There was an interesting article on NBC online on 5/28/22.  They quoted the Harvard Review of Psychiatry as follows:  "The assumption that mass shootings are driven solely or even primarily by diagnosable psychopathology stretches the limits of mental health expertise."  They also state that many of these shooters do share symptoms with others who never become shooters.  Symptoms such as "depression, isolation from family and classmates, narcissism, paranoia and suspicion...(and) feeling easily threatened or insulted by others."  That does not instill confidence in being able to screen for mental illness.

Social media.  On 5/28/22, CNN reported that the "Uvalde gunman threatened rapes and school shootings on social media app Yubo in (the) weeks leading up to the massacre, users say."  The problem is, 99% of the estimated 60 million users of Yubo are age 25 and under.  None of them took the threats with sufficient seriousness to make a report.  CNN indicates that Yubo began in 2015 and is based in Paris.  So it would appear that both users of the site, and the site itself, failed to alert authorities about the threat from the Uvalde gunman.  

School safety and security.  The Western Journal (5/30/22) had an interesting piece about school security in Israel.  The Israelis are famous for being leaders in security, given the threats that they face on a daily basis.  According to the Journal, Israel has a "complex, multi-layered approach" to school security.  It includes behavioral profiling, monitoring people's social media profiles, having metal detectors going into schools and having to sign in, and having one entrance and one exit.  The head of security knows everyone coming in and leaving.  And they have a "spotter" 50 meters out from the school patrolling the area.  They have security fencing and numerous cameras, and there are barricades that prevent cars from driving onto the campus.  Does all that cost a lot?  I am sure that it does.  But we are spending multiple trillions of dollars a year at the federal level already.  Can't we spend some of that for school safety?  

Declining religious involvement.  Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson (the Rebbe) is widely regarded as being the most influential Rabbi in the 20th century.  Rabbi Schneerson was the head of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.  (Disclosure.  I have attended religious services at Chabad for years.)  The Rebbe was a big believer in school prayer.  However, he was well aware that many of his fellow Jews feared that Christian prayers would dominate the schools.  Therefore, he advocated for a non-denominational prayer that would acknowledge the existence of G-d.  He said that all people needed to know that "the world in which they live is not a jungle, where brute force, cunning, and unbridled passion rule supreme, but that it has a (Supreme Being) Who...takes a 'personal interest' in the affairs of each and every individual, and to Him everyone is accountable for (his or her) daily conduct."  Are we, as a society, better off without school prayer?  I certainly don't thinks so.  

And the Rebbe made this very astute observation:  "If in a previous generation there were people who doubted the need of Divine authority for common morality and ethics, (and who believed instead) that human reason is sufficient authority for morality and ethics, our present generation has, unfortunately, in a most devastating and tragic way, refuted this mistaken notion.  For it is precisely the nation which had excelled itself in the exact sciences, the humanities, and even in philosophy and ethics, that turned out to be the most depraved nation in the world..."  The Rebbe was referring, of course, to Nazi Germany.