Florida's dictator "dah" Santis is drunk on his own power

Echo editorial opinion published by the Orlando Sentinel:

State Attorney Monique Worrell has been living in the shadow of the headsman’s axe for months, with Gov. Ron DeSantis hinting, threatening, sometimes even joking about removing her from office. He’s rallied his allies to attack her, sent accusatory demands for data to discredit her, trampled clear legal boundaries meant to keep politics out of criminal justice and twisted the truth to justify the games he’s been playing.

Wednesday, that axe fell. At 8:30 a.m., DeSantis called a press conference to announce that he was suspending Worrell, effective immediately. 

For "dah" Santis, it was a practiced performance of political theater, one that — by now — because the Florida dictator governor has learned to execute almost convincingly. He’s certainly had plenty of practice: From the start of his governorship, DeSantis has arbitrarily been removing officials from offices in ways that far exceeds his actual authority.

So, when "dah" Santis stood up at his now-familiar podium, flanked by sheriffs and echoed by his best supporting actress, Attorney General Ashley Moody, Floridians might have been tricked into believing that DeSantis was duly exercising the authority voters vested in him as governor, and that he took that duty seriously.
Spoiler alert: He wasn’t – and doesn’t❗

Let us walk through the ways the governor hoodwinked Florida voters, once again. You’ll be surprised to find that his actions have little to do with the facts or the law — or even with how good, or bad, a prosecutor Worrell has been.

Monique Worrell

Instead — as usual — it’s all about DeSantis.

1. Does the governor really have the authority to remove duly elected officials based on his whims and policy differences? The answer is

   

   NO!

   DeSantis’ powers are restricted to removing elected officials who are guilty of “malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, drunkenness, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties, or commission of a felony.” Even if the carefully selected (dare we say cherry-picked?) data DeSantis included in the 40-page press release 

   

   A 40 page press release?

   
   ....is true and a fair reflection of Worrell’s performance, it all boils down to a difference in policy.
   
   Discrepancies don’t prove incompetence. Prosecutors, in particular, are supposed to have wide discretion in how they handle the criminal cases that are brought to their offices by local police agencies. That discretion provides a critical firewall against abusive behavior by law enforcement, and a way to ensure that punishments really fit crimes.
2. Are DeSantis’ accusations against Worrell true? Answer is unclear. The Orlando Sentinel staff hasn’t had a chance to go through them properly yet, but we do know that on numerous occasions we’ve caught the governor bending the truth to the breaking point. For example, when he suspended State Attorney Andrew Warren last year, he included allegations that were clearly deceptive — including an assertion that Warren had neglected his duty, or showed incompetence, for not prosecuting under laws that weren’t even in effect when Warren was removed from office, and for which no arrests had been made. Even if the statistics he provided are correct, it is already apparent that DeSantis is blaming Worrell for some things that are largely outside her authority (such as how juvenile justice officials process cases, or decisions judges make in setting bail for criminal defendants).

Nevertheless, the editorial board finds it telling that neither of the sheriffs playing the role of backup singers at Tuesday’s press conference actually works in her circuit, which includes Orange and Osceola counties. In a terse statement to press, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said he wasn’t invited to speak. (Worrell has, in the past, implied that Mina was working with DeSantis to undermine her. We’ve seen no evidence of that, either — just that Mina seems to be staying in his lane and continuing to work with Worrell even when they disagree.)

        3. Does DeSantis care that he’s established a clear pattern of retaliating against elected officials in a nakedly partisan, self-advantageous way? Answer is "apparently not". This is the same governor, after all, who looked the other way for nearly two years as former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg abused his office in increasingly blatant ways, including using taxpayer equipment to mine bitcoin and make fake driver licenses for underaged girls. That trash finally took itself out when Greenberg resigned — a week after his first federal indictment. DeSantis also left his legislative ally, State Rep. Joe Harding, in office after Harding had been indicted for money laundering, wire fraud and making false statements Harding also resigned. DeSantis’ attacks almost always focus on officials that he thinks will burnish his hard-conservative bona fides, often based on cases that stir public emotion — such as the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland (the prelude to DeSantis’ removal of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel) or this weekend’s shooting of two Orlando Police officers by a man released on bail.

4.  Does the will of the voters who evaluated these candidates mean anything to him? Answer is "it doesn’t seem to". We’ve never observed the governor to have any concern for any vote that wasn’t cast directly for him. In the cases of Warren and now Worrell, he’s gone after prosecutors who openly campaigned on the need for criminal justice reform, better community-based solutions against violence and a willingness to challenge the status quo. Orange and Osceola voters knew who they were voting for when they chose Worrell.

What happened to Worrell Tuesday was an outrage and a disgrace, a clear abuse by a governor drunk on his own power. But Worrell was not the real victim: The voters who put her into office were the ones DeSantis really betrayed, as he has so many times before. In the weeks to come, we expect that to become even more clear. Stay tuned.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com

Vice President Pence must hear the March for our Lives message

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Victim's Fund

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is located in Parkland, Florida, in the Miami, Florida metropolitan area. It is a part of the Broward County Public School district.

David Hogg, survivor of the mass shooting at the Marjory Stonman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018, who has used his newfound notoriety to promote gun reform, is demanding Vice President Mike Pence to withdraw from a planned speech at an upcoming National Rifle Association (NRA) convention, The Washington Times reported.
In a tweet Sunday, Hogg encouraged others to "Demand Mike Pence cancel his speech to the NRA convention on May 4." Accompanying his post was information about a petition by MoveOn.org asking for signatures that also demanded Pence cancel his NRA speech.

The petition states the vice president's presence at the convention was "a signal to young people organizing historic actions that the NRA's extremist agenda and donations are more valuable to Mike Pence than the lives lost." 

The petition also targets other lawmakers, insisting those who oppose the NRA "must hold all politicians to basic standards of decency."

The May NRA meeting is set to take place in Dallas Texas, and is a gathering of the group's political lobbying arm and not the broader membership, the Times article states.

More opinion echoes to support #MarchForOurLives ~ Texas

Change dialogue~ MySanAntonio.com
Another "echo" published in a letter to the editor in the San Antonio Express-News: opinions blogged by me, selected from random searches in US newspapers.

Marjory Stonemann Douglas High School 

If I could shake the hand of every student who spearheaded the #marchforourlives movement after the senseless attack killing 17 promising students, I would do so in a heartbeat.

I am proud to see our future generation filled with forthright, sensible young leaders able to organize, unite and lead efforts to create a better society. The mass shootings at schools have left the country in a stonewalling debate where some have gripped their guns more tightly, while others condemn their very existence.

I feel that the gun control issue is blurred by misconceptions of what gun control entails. Most feel gun control means total erasure of the Second Amendment, which could not be further from the truth.

Raising the age requirement to ensure that buyers are mature enough to purchase a gun would be a big step toward sensible gun control.

Having more corporations follow outlets such as Dick’s Sporting Goods, which banned sales of assault-style rifles, would make it harder for individuals to obtain these types of weapons.

Reinforcing background checks and revamping the process, along with gun education, could mean the difference between life and death.

Educating our community that guns are not the enemy but rather a tool our forefathers understood will help change the dialogue and perspective of our country.

Letter to the editor from Patricia Macias

More guns make people less safe: A Florida echo opinion

No, sorry, more guns won't make us safer | Opinion published in the Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper, by Alan Grayson.

Former Congressman Alan Grayson ~ opinion

On the day of the tragic shooting at Terminal 2 at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport, I had the misfortune of listening to right-wing talk radio during a long drive. 

Discussion turned to what could have been done to prevent the attack, and I heard that sad but persistent fallacy: "If only the other passengers had been armed . ..."

And when Nikolas Cruz killed 17 students and staffers at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, President Truhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/17/us/politics/live-congress-votes-scott-pruitt-epa.htmlmp advocated arming teachers.

No, sorry. It doesn't work that way. 

Subjecting the victims to crossfire does not make them safer.

When the Second Amendment was ratified, it took two minutes to load a musket. Esteban Santiago, the accused Fort Lauderdale shooter, fired 10-15 rounds in just over one minute. At Parkland, Cruz fired around 150 rounds in three or four minutes. Does anyone seriously believe that a bystander with a gun, possibly under attack himself, could have disabled the killer that quickly?

If "more guns" meant "more safe," we'd be the safest place on Earth. America is the only country with more guns than people. We also have the 11th highest "firearm-related death rate," more than one death each year for every 10,000 people.

Here is a list of annual gun homicides, as reported by the Washington Post:

Japan: 11

S. Korea: 14

France: 35

England: 41

Spain: 90

Germany: 158

Canada 173

Italy: 417

U.S.: 9,960

Inside the United States, Alaska has the highest rate of gun ownership, twice the national average. And the highest rate of gun deaths, twice the national average.

We are awash in guns, and — no coincidence — we're awash in mass murder. 

How could we possibly make it easier to buy a gun? In Florida, if you're 18 years old, you're not a convicted felon, and you don't have an adjudication of mental illness or drug abuse, you can buy a rifle, and as much ammo as you can carry. One-third of us already own guns. What are we supposed to do? Make it mandatory?

There certainly are lessons to be learned from these attacks. Santiago, the airport shooting, suspect suffered a mental breakdown serving in Iraq, when he saw two friends blown up. He was under psychiatric care. He tried to strangle his girlfriend. He told the FBI that the CIA was forcing him to join ISIS, and that he heard voices in his head urging violent acts. 

The police took away guns away from him, twice!

And gave the guns back, twice.

Lesson One: Don't give the guns back!!

(MaineWriter note ~ the heinous murder at the Tennessee waffle house on Sunday April 22, 2018, was carried out by a mentally ill man whose father returned his guns to him, after the Secret Service and police had revoked them!)
Santiago used a semi-automatic weapon. Any semi-automatic weapon makes it all-too-easy to kill too many people, very quickly. So why did he stop? He ran out of bullets.

But in Parkland, Nikolas Cruz not only fired around 150 shots, but he also had more than 180 rounds left over, in six 30-round magazines.

Lesson Two: A ban on high-capacity magazines (which eight states now have) can save lives.
When tragedies like these occur, just ask a simple question: "What could have prevented it?" The answers are there.

Former Rep. Alan Grayson represented Florida's 9th District in Orlando where many of the Pulse nightclub shooting victims lived. In the wake of that massacre, he introduced a permanent assault weapons ban bill, called the "Freedom from Fear Act."

Evidence based gun control ~ like Australia

An echo letter to the editor published in the Press of Atlantic City in Pleasantville, New Jersey.

Obviously, Republicans do not know how to respond to the growing morbidity and mortality caused by gun violence in America.  Therefore, look to Australia. Indeed, the Aussies are a role model for common sense gun control. It has been 20 years since Australia has had an incident of mass gun violence. 

Rapid-fire guns were banned throughout Australia after an event known as the Port Arthur massacre, a mass shooting left 35 people dead and 19 wounded. The shocking rampage, in a quiet town in southeastern Tasmania, prompted lawmakers to enact the National Firearms Agreement.

Bullets don't discriminate ~ end gun violence

When "down under" government acted, the evidence demonstrated how the incidence of gun violence was dramatically reduced.  Moreover, overall homicide rates also fell.

In other words, proof that it's "guns that kill people". In fact, guns really do kill and when there are an absence of them, the death rate caused by gun violence correlates accordingly. Here is an echo, a letter to the editor, blogged to demonstrate this point: 

A letter from Claude Delaverdac:

I am devastated over the recent Florida school shooting (at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida ~ an incident that happened on February 14, 2018). 

Why is America so powerless to stop these senseless tragedies? Why do we tolerate politicians with their standard obfuscation of the issue? The problem is as obvious as the emperor’s new clothes. There are too many guns and it is ridiculously easy to get them.

The NRA (National Rifle Association) needs to get over its paranoia about losing the Second Amendment. 

People are not trying to take away hunting rifles. Better background checks and improved coordination of information among various agencies may help, but assault weapons should be the exclusive domain of law enforcement and the military. These deadly weapons of mass destruction are not toys for the adventurous and the malevolent.

The Second Amendment begins, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.” An anachronism? Our forefathers couldn’t possibly have imagined the insanity of modern society.

We can stop this. Keep talking about it. Don’t let the good intentions of young people fade out until the next such incident, which won’t be long. People should let elected officials know they are mad as hell and will hold them accountable until they act.

In Australia, people were gunned down by a mass murderer in 1996. The government reacted swiftly, banning rapid fire guns and implementing two mandatory buyback programs. The result? There hasn’t been a mass shooting since.

It’s time for our elected officials to do the right thing. Stop gun violence. Use the example of gun regulations, as demonstrated by the sensible Australians.

Claude Delaverdac ~ Galloway Township

March for our Lives ~ echo from Savannah Georgia

My echo of the day is posting another opinion letter to the editor, published in support for the children who were victims and the casualties of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting on February 14, 2018, in Parkland, Florida.  

This letter was published in the Savannah Morning News, Georgia.

Touched by March For Our Lives event

The march in Washington grabbed my heart. 

My emotions ran raw as I witnessed these vibrant young people demanding gun control. They obviously realize how important it is to vote, when they reach 18.

I was one of the first in the country to vote at that age. Georgia passed a law that allowed, if young men could fight in World War II, then surely they were old enough to vote. I turned 18 in August of that year and proudly voted for Franklin Roosevelt as soon as the polls opened.

The youth that took the stage last Saturday afternoon are an amazing and brilliant young people who have convinced me that change will come. And voting will be the instrument -- not guns. I was moved to tears over and over at their raw emotion and self-confidence. Their commitment is engrossing.

I join with them, both with my sentiment, courage and financial aid. And I urge everyone who wants change to call your local elected officials, your county elected officials, your national elected officials and let them all know that they will be voted out if they don’t change gun laws.

Miriam Center, Savannah

Enough is Enough ~ Parkland and the Vietnam protests

An Echo from The Washington Post and Newspaperdirect 
By James Hohomann (Echo articles and opinions are selected by my MaineWriter via random searches of the nation's newspapers.)

“The great achievement . . . was to bring a large swath of Americans together in dissent, establishing their (unified) cause.."

US Navy officer John Kerry and Ted Kennedy during the Vietnam War era

In the Vietnam War years (1955-1975), millions of young people lived in fear that they — or someone they loved — would have their number called, and they’d be shipped off against their will to the rice paddies and jungles of a faraway land, for a cause they felt was unjust and futile. 

From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. military conscripted 2.2 million men — boys, really — out of an eligible pool of 27 million. This helped fuel the mass movement against the war.

A key reason the protests against the war in Vietnam were so much more potent than against the war in Iraq is that there was a draft back then.

Young people today aren’t worried about being drafted to fight Kim Jong Un in North Korea. But many are palpably concerned that they or someone they know could get shot at school. 

High-profile incidents, culminating with the February 14, 2018, mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., have shaken many middle-class kids, who would not otherwise be inclined to activism, out of their suburban comfort zones.

Saturday’s (March 24), March for Our Lives was so big because the fears are so personal. A whole generation has come of age since the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado that left 13 dead. More than 100 people have died from gunfire at school since then, and more than 187,000 students attending at least 193 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus during school hours, according to a Washington Post analysis.
These numbers are relatively small when compared with the 58,000 Americans who died during Vietnam, but they are nonetheless staggering. Schools, of course, are not supposed to be war zones. Like other forms of terrorism, these shootings instill panic in the rest of the population.

From coast to coast, hundreds of thousands of people protested Saturday for stricter gun laws. Many attendees said during interviews or speeches that they were motivated by dread and anxiety that they could be next.Former secretary of state John F. Kerry sees parallels between the Parkland survivors and “many of the Vietnam veterans who returned home and felt compelled to speak out about their experience.”

“Every historic moment has its own power, and these young people deserve their own moment,” Kerry said in an email.

“Many of the students have earned the right to be heard through a shared loss that innocents should never experience. Their moral clarity defies politics or partisanship. . . . These young people have touched the conscience of the country about common sense on guns, and they have the power to make it a voting issue again.”

Kerry became an antiwar activist after volunteering as a naval officer in Vietnam, an experience that profoundly shaped his worldview and service in the Senate. 

“Marjory Stoneman Douglas High students were compelled because they’d seen friends suffer and die for a policy that they thought was a mistake,” he said, referring to the veterans who became protesters. “Because they’d served, they couldn’t be dismissed by Spiro Agnew and the Nixon White House. The same way, these young people from Parkland and all over the country can’t be written off by mere politicians. Their moral authority is unimpeachable.”

The 74-year-old also sees analogues between the March for Our Lives and the movement to protect the environment, another issue that many view in existential terms. “The environment was written off for a long time as a minor issue,” he said. “Earth Day 1970 changed all of that when millions filled the streets of America and turned the environment into a voting issue and forced [Richard] Nixon to create the EPA.”

The march in Washington on Saturday, March 24, mixed political activism with the raw emotion of teenagers who are dealing with the murder of their friends under the glare of the national spotlight, which in this era means nasty criticism from trolls on the Internet.

“Sam Fuentes, a senior shot in the leg at Stoneman Douglas, up on stage while delivering her speech to a national television audience. She recovered and led the crowd in a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ for her slain classmate Nicholas Dworet, who would have turned 18 on Saturday,” according to The Post’s account.

“Emma González, 18, took the stage in a drab olive coat and torn jeans, speaking of the ‘ long, tearful, chaotic hours in scorching afternoon sun’ as students waited outside . . . on the day of the shooting. With a flinty stare, tears streaming down her face, González stood silent on the rally’s main stage for nearly four minutes — evoking the time it took Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz to carry out his attack. The crowd began chanting, ‘Never again.’ ”

History tells us that change won’t happen overnight. Zachary Jonathan Jacobson, a historian of the Cold War, saw echoes in the Saturday protests of the nationwide demonstrations against the Vietnam War on Oct. 15, 1969. Students skipped class in 10,000 high schools, and experts estimate that about 2 million Americans protested that day.

“A withdrawal from Vietnam was not negotiated for three more years; a full withdrawal not for another six,” Jacobson said. “But while [Nixon] refused to comment publicly on the demonstrations, letting ‘it be known that he was watching sports on TV in the White House’ that day, we now know that the president was privately spooked. The protests forced Nixon to cancel plans to expand the war with an offensive of aerial bombing, harbor mining [and] even an invasion of North Vietnam.

“The unity of action firmly established that the antiwar movement had a constituency that could be mobilized,” he added. “The great achievement . . . was to bring a large swath of Americans together in dissent, establishing that their antiwar cause was not fueled by a dangerous fringe that Nixon could, with a few dirty tricks, stamp out or discredit.”

Cathy Richardson, lead singer of the rock band Jefferson Starship, said the energy emanating from the *Enough is Enough* Washington DC crowd is reminiscent of the anti-Vietnam War protests. 

March for Our Lives ~ March 24 to support #NeverAgain

In support of #NeverForget ~ A syndicated column "echo" published in the Omaha World-Herald ~ originally published in The Washington Post by Mark Barden and Nicole Hockley

Marching for our children, who died at Sandy Hook, Connecticut

Five years ago, we kissed our youngest children goodbye as they climbed onto the bus to go to school. Less than two hours later, they were gone forever, murdered in their first-grade classrooms at Sandy Hook Elementary.

We promised we would make a difference in their names. We promised we would stop this from happening again.

Our children live on in our work through Sandy Hook Promise, the group we launched to advocate for common-sense legislation to keep schools safe and provide free programs such as “Start With Hello” to schools nationwide so they could learn the signs of at-risk behavior and intervene before violence occurs.

Sweet little Daniel, who exemplified kindness and compassion, is part of every student who learns to Start With Hello and include others. Beautiful butterfly Dylan reminds us that through small changes, we can make a big impact, like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings that creates a storm on the other side of the world.

Every time we’re in a school, especially in front of sixth-graders, we look at the eyes watching us and think of the two boys who should also be in sixth grade now, but are instead forever first-graders. It breaks our hearts every time, but it also strengthens our resolve.

We’ve made a lot of progress in Daniel’s and Dylan’s names. Our “Know the Signs” programs are in more than 7,000 schools and have already stopped multiple school shooting and suicide threats. Sandy Hook Promise programs have also reduced acts of self-harm and bullying and have connected many kids to the mental health services they need.

We’ve made policy progress as well, such as the passage of the STOP School Violence Act in the House last week.

It’s not enough, though. Gun violence is still our nation’s waking nightmare, taking more lives each year. We work as hard as we can to teach gun violence prevention and get legislation passed, but we can’t work fast enough. America’s children are still being killed.

Last month’s school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, brought us to our knees, tearing our hearts open yet again. We started to hear the same conversation that we always hear after a tragedy — “thoughts and prayers,” “it’s not time to talk about gun legislation,” “nothing is going to change.”

But this time, something was different.

The students at Parkland decided they would lead the fight. Their energy, their intelligence, their clarion call to adults begging them to save their lives has breathed new life into the movement and created a massive new base of youth who want — and demand — a better future.

What parent can listen to their child begging for their help and not act?

Adults have been working on gun-violence prevention for three decades, with minimal results. Almost every attempt disintegrates into an intense and divisive debate that leaves many entrenched in extreme viewpoints while alienating the vast majority in the middle, who just tune the whole thing out because they believe nothing will change.

We will never stop working to deliver on our promises to Daniel and Dylan. But right now, it’s time for us — for all adults — to step aside and let the students lead. These brave Parkland students can stand on our shoulders.

We will stand with them to help them raise their voices even louder and empower other students to join them to create the future they want to live in. Even after the tragedy in Parkland, we have seen still more school shootings in this country. Just Tuesday, a student opened fire at a school in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, injuring two others.

That’s why we will be in Washington on Saturday for March for Our Lives. Joined by Daniel’s older siblings and Dylan’s big brother, we’ll march for Parkland. We’ll march for Sandy Hook. We’ll march for the approximately 7,000 kids who have been killed by firearms since Sandy Hook. And we’ll march for our surviving children, for their future. A future safe from gun violence.

If Daniel and Dylan had lived, they would be marching as sixth-graders with the Parkland students. Though they are gone, their spirits live on and we know they will be marching at our sides.

Echo - newspaper opinion letters to the editor: Stop Gun Violence

Echos - Journal Star in Peoria, Illinois and Kansas City Star in Missouri ~ "...they just want to get through their teen years without having to worry about being gunned down in the classroom or the school cafeteria." Melinda Henneberger

Peoria Illinois

Stop the Gun Violence! Journal Star - Illinois "Echo" ~ Peoria, Il

Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2108, for so many students in Parkland, Florida, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High Shool, involved running as fast as they could out of school so they weren’t killed by a nutcase shooter!

Those who escaped were the lucky ones. Many of their friends were being wheeled into ambulances as parents rushed to see if their child had been killed.

Every time there is a shooting of innocent children, we hear the cry that something needs to be done. And nothing is ever done!

Please don’t continue to say: Our prayers are with the families. Do something to stop this insanity! Bring back mental health facilities, tighten the control of gun sales, speak up if you know someone who is demonstrating uncontrolled rage.

Since we will never have the ability to take away guns, like a few countries have done, it is up to each one of us to contact our politicians to say we have had enough. It’s time for our children to be safe!

Mary O’Russa, Peoria IL 

Letter to the editor from Melinda Henneberger 

Child Soldiers are fighting the war on gunsDear Donald Trump, So...You want crowd size?

Don’t look now, Donald Trump, but marchers more numerous than all the pink hats ever knit and more impressive than all those sharp-looking tanks rolling down the Champs on Bastille Day are headed your way.

When America’s children march on Washington and in cities around the country next month, you who have refused to protect them from gun violence might want to take cover under a nice sturdy Resolute desk.

Or maybe instead of watching TV, as Nixon claimed to have done as somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people marched outside his window against the war in Vietnam in November of 1969, you’ll slip off to a golf course where you can’t hear them at all.

No matter. Because even as you try to make the massacre of 17 Florida teenagers all about you.... (indeed)..you  (Trump) must know that these particular young demonstrators will be impossible to write off as partisans.

Our nations' kids are not political adversaries looking for any excuse to erase the Second Amendment. 

They are speaking truth to power.

Clarion Calls from gun violence victims

Not One More ~ Simple but powerful words have become the rallying cry for Americans who refuse to accept the toll gun violence.

Sandy Hook Promise ~ Mission is to prevent gun-related deaths due to crime, suicide and accidental discharge so that no other parent experiences the senseless, horrific loss of their child. We will achieve this by educating and empowering parents, schools and communities on mental health & wellness programs that identify, intervene and help at-risk individuals and gun safety practices that ensure that firearms are kept safe and secure.

SHP Action Fund’s mission is to enact sensible gun violence prevention laws, policy and regulations at a state and federal level, in the areas of mental health & wellness and gun safety that result in the reduction of gun-related death and injury. We will achieve this by engaging, organizing and mobilizing our national base of Promise Makers and Leaders at a state and federal level.

Florida shooting: 'Enough is enough'

Busloads of students from the Florida high school in Broward County that saw a mass shooting on February 14, 2018, arrived in Florida's capital, Tallahassee, to lobby for tighter gun control measures.  It is the first planned rally for their new movement, NeverAgain.

This isn't about Democrats. This isn't about Republicans. This is about us demanding change, and this is about the fact that we have already won, it's just a matter of when," yelled a student standing atop a car, firing up the group before they hit the road.

(Shamefully perpetrating the evil of supporting guns rather than the lives of children.....),,,,,But just as the students started rolling north on their journey for justice, the stupid Republican lawmakers in Tallahassee voted down a measure to ban purchases of murderous assault rifles, like the one 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz used in his attack that killed 17 students and school staff members in Parkland.

With a 71-36 vote,  Republican Florida lawmakers defeated the assault-rifle bill that would have also banned the purchases of large-capacity magazines statewide.

Father James Martin, Jesuit editor of America Magazine:

"The well-funded resistance to the sensible regulation of handguns, the easy availability of semi-automatic weapons and the resistance to preventing people with mental health issues from obtaining them, is a clear participation in evil. This is a life issue."

"Gun control is about the defense of life. Those who consider themselves religious or pro-life must see that the desire to prevent gun-related deaths is part of the religious defense of the dignity of all life."

"We need less guns in America, not more" Broward County Sheriff Scott Isreal

Stop blaming gun violence on people who are mentally ill. 

An "echo" opinion, published in the Illinois State Journal Register.

Guns kill - they are the root cause of gun violence and the source of the massacres of innocent Americans.
When will Republicans do something? In my opinion, the 17 dead children and their adult coach/teachers in Parkland Florida, are the victims of irresponsible Republican leadership at the Executive and Congressional levels. Even the Supreme Court has made clear that the Second Amendment is not "absolute" ~ as per Eugene Robinson

In fact, Donald Trump signed a clandestine bill into law that allows the mentally ill to buy guns. Now, Republicans are blaming the mentally ill for the tragedy of gun violence and the sinful massacres of innocent school children.

But the problem is guns. Here is Eugene Robinson's opinion from the Illinois State Journal Register opinion:

Eugene Robinson opinion: 

The issue is not mental health. It’s guns.

Don’t tell me the issue is mental health. Save the nonsense about “good guys” with weapons somehow being the answer. The truth is this: There would have been no tragic shooting Wednesday in Parkland, Florida, if a troubled young man had not gotten his hands on a military-style assault rifle and as much ammunition as he wanted.

Many people knew that  the suspect Nikolas Cruz was troubled, violent and liable to explode. 

Yet nothing kept him from acquiring the gun he allegedly used to kill 17 students and faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in yet another senseless slaughter of the kind that still shocks but no longer surprises.

President Trump addressed the nation, saying we must “answer hate with love” and vowing to “tackle the difficult issue of mental health.” But he made no mention of gun control — meaning he might as well have said nothing at all.

According to news reports in The Washington Post and other outlets, Cruz, 19, had been repeatedly suspended and then expelled from the high school for disciplinary problems. He had sought and received treatment at a mental health clinic, but stopped attending. He showed signs of depression. His posts on social media were so unsettling that they scared acquaintances away. His father died several years ago and his mother, with whom he was close, passed away around Thanksgiving. The leader of a white nationalist group claimed that Cruz was a member.

And he had a fetish for guns.

To say there were warning signs about Cruz is a gross understatement. There were flashing red lights and blaring sirens.

“I think everyone in this school had it in the back of their mind that if anyone was supposed to do it, it was most likely going to be him,” a former classmate told the Post — “do it” meaning the kind of homicidal rampage we saw Wednesday. A math teacher at the school told the Miami Herald that Cruz had threatened students before being expelled, and that “he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him.”

It was obvious that a tragedy might be coming. Yet, as a society, we refused to take the steps that could have prevented it.

How many alienated and disturbed young men are out there, rattling around peaceful suburbs like Parkland? Many thousands, surely. Some will get the help they need; some won’t. Most will never act on their violent urges; but, sadly, some will.

It is impossible to imagine a mental health system with the scope, authority and resources necessary to prevent every Parkland or Newtown or Columbine. In Cruz’s case, in fact, the existing system worked: He got professional help. School administrators knew he could pose a threat. 

According to news reports, a tipster even tried to alert the FBI that Cruz wanted to be “a professional school shooter.”

Yet in February 2017, Cruz was able to legally purchase an AR-15-style assault rifle from a local gun shop. With no criminal record or anything else in his past that would raise an official red flag, he sailed through a background check.

Apologists for the National Rifle Association will cynically use this circumstance to argue against a common-sense measure that four out of five Americans support: universal background checks for gun purchases. That wouldn’t have stopped the Parkland massacre, they will claim — diverting attention from the fact that universal checks could have prevented some mass shootings in the past and would surely prevent some in the future.

At the heart of the matter, though, lies the gun- (MaineWriter ~ and access to too many guns, especially assault weapons and the ammunition needed to kill people).

There are disturbed individuals like Cruz in countries around the world, but only the United States suffers mass shootings so regularly that they have almost become routine. Why? Because you can’t shoot up a school or a night club or a country music concert the way it was done in Parkland, Orlando and Las Vegas if you don’t have access to weapons of war that were designed for the battlefield.

The Supreme Court has made clear that the Second Amendment, while guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms, is not absolute. The Bill of Rights was written in the era of muskets and dueling pistols. We don’t allow private citizens to own surface-to-air missiles capable of downing an airliner, so why do we let them own assault rifles designed not to shoot targets or game but to kill human beings in large numbers?

This is madness. Look at those grieving parents in Parkland. Know that because of the NRA, others surely will soon join their ranks.

Contact Eugene Robinson: eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

Broward County, Florida Sheriff Scott Isreal said it all in a press conference and TV interview - "America needs less guns, not more guns".

American Congress and government are not protecting children

This essay was published in "The Conversation", an on line news digest. Although I appreciate the author's point of view, the fact is, our schools are less safe, while the American Congress and Donald Trump administration aren't doing anything to protect our children from preventable gun violence. Regardless of the sociological analysis about the growing number of gun violence incidents in schools, the root cause of all of them is the easy access to guns. 

Gun violence in America

Why security measures won’t stop school shootings

When deadly school shootings like the one that took place on Valentine’s Day in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Broward County, Florida occur, often they are followed by calls for more stringent security measures.

For instance, after the Jan. 23 case in which a 15-year-old student allegedly shot and killed two students and wounded 16 others at a small-town high school in Kentucky, some Kentucky lawmakers called for armed teachers and staff.

If anything, the response of the Kentucky lawmakers represents what has been called the “target-hardening” approach to school shootings. This approach attempts to fortify schools against gun violence through increased security measures. 

These security measures may include metal detectors, lock-down policies, “run, hide, fight” training and surveillance cameras.

While some of these measures seem sensible, overall there is little empirical evidence that such security measures decrease the likelihood of school shootings. Surveillance cameras were powerless to stop the carnage in Columbine (April 20, 1999) and school lock-down policies did not save the children at Sandy Hook Elementary (December 14, 2012) .

As researchers who have collaboratively written about school shootings, we believe what is missing from the discussion is the idea of an educational response. 

Current policy responses do not address the fundamental question of why so many mass shootings take place in schools? 

To answer this question, we need to get to the heart of how students experience school and the meaning that schools have in American life.

An educational response is important because the “target hardening” approach might actually make things worse by changing students’ experience of schools in ways that suggest violence rather than prevent it.

How security measures can backfire

Filling schools with metal detectors, surveillance cameras, police officers and gun-wielding teachers tells students that schools are scary, dangerous and violent places – places where violence is expected to occur.

The “target hardening” approach also has the potential to change how teachers, students and administrators see one another. 

How teachers understand the children and youth they teach has important educational consequences. Are students budding citizens or future workers? Are they plants to nourish or clay to mold?

One of the most common recommendations for schools, for example, is that they should be engaged in threat assessment. 

Checklists are sometimes suggested to school personnel to determine when students should be considered as having the potential for harm. While such practices have their place, as a society we should be aware that these practices change how teachers think of students: not as budding learners, but potential shooters; not with the potential to grow and flourish, but with the potential to enact lethal harm.

Of course, society can think of students in different ways at different times. But the more teachers think of students as threats to be assessed, the less educators will think of students as individuals to nourish and cultivate.

As researchers, we have read the accounts of dozens of different school shootings, and we think educators, parents and others should begin to raise the following questions about schools.

Questions of status

To what extent does the school – through things like athletics, homecoming royalties, or dances and so forth – encourage what some political scientists have called the “status tournament of adolescence” that lurks behind the stories of many school shootings?

As one reads about such shootings, one often senses a feeling of social anxiety and betrayal on the part of perpetrator. 

Americans hold high expectations for schools as places of friendship and romance, yet too often students find alienation, humiliation and isolation. The frustration at these thwarted expectations at least sometimes seems to turn toward the school itself.

Force and control issues

To what extent does the force and coercion employed by many schools contribute to a “might makes right” mentality and associated violence?

It is true that bullying is part of some of the stories of school shooters. Students who are bullied or who are bullies themselves will quite naturally think of schools as places appropriate for violence. There is also sometimes a rage, however, against the day-to-day imposition of school discipline and punishment. Since schools are experienced as places of force and control, for some students, they also come to be seen as appropriate places for violence.

Identity and expression

In research on American high schools, one finds the idea that American schools are intertwined with notions of “expressive individualism” – the idea that human beings should find out and be true to who they really are on the inside. Might this also contribute to school shootings?

Suburban high schools, in particular, are seen by the middle class as places to accomplish expressive projects. Sociologist Robert Bulman points out, for example, how Hollywood films set in suburban settings focus on student journeys of self-discovery, while urban school films focus on heroic teachers and academic achievement. 

In the same vein, many suburban school shooters see what they are doing as acts of self-expression.

Reading stories of school shootings, one often finds moments in which the shooters claim that something inside, whether hatred or frustration, needed to find expression. An example of this is the manifesto left by Luke Woodham, who shot two students in 1997. “I am not spoiled or lazy,” he wrote, “for murder is not weak or slow-witted, murder is gutsy and daring.” 

Tragically the school became the place where Woodham thought he could express the gutsy and daring person he found on the inside.

What to do

Of course, it will be difficult to definitively answer the questions we have posed above. And, even if we are able to find answers, it is not clear what the proper educational response should be.

For example, self-expression might be a valuable task for schools, even if it is found to contribute in some way to school shootings. Our suggestion is simply that, instead of trying to find solutions to school shootings in the dubious arms of security technologies, or even solely through more promising public policy, society should ask deeper questions about the nature of education and schooling in American society.

It is time to think about school shootings not as a problem of security, but also as a problem of education.

MaineWriter ~ Education is a sociological concept but easy access to guns is the root cause.