Fear of profiling paralyzes our society from acting effectively against sociopaths/psychopaths. This Cruz kid was an obvious time bomb, as were the Tsarnaev brothers, etc. etc. A mountain of evidence before they exploded. FBI simply watched them. Why so passive? Fear of being labelled racists/bigots by the usual suspects.
Good points, but it's also the Lefty non-judgmental "culture", it's the Lefty entitlement "culture", it's the Lefty "you can't put this boy away because he's a menace to society" "culture", it's the Lefty "criminals have rights" "culture".
It's also the Lefty-inspired "God is dead" "culture" and the New Morality, which tyurned out, to the surprise of no one, the Old Immorality.
Go back 50+ years or so, back when there were rules, when the bad guys were locked up and/or executed.
I still remember my high school years. At least once a year, we had a phoned in bomb threat. No one freaked out about it, but the school did the right thing and had us evacuate buildings using normal fire drill techniques. Only once do I recall anything being found, which was hidden drugs not a bomb. We went back in, and tried to finish the test, because oddly, these false alarms tended to happen when a major test was scheduled. Ironic, right?
The thing is, if you were a disruptive student that was causing problems in the school; you were identified early on and removed from the campus. You may not have been permanently expelled, but you went to a special campus were security was much tighter. There, you either learned to behave, or you graduated with local law enforcement already knowing your name and face.
I was talking to a friend about firearms training that I didn't like being put through. Oddly, none of it came from any of the military bases. It was all from the general public. He asked, "Like what?"
I had a bit of difficulty putting my finger on them. Previously I had tried to put them out of my mind.
I could picture the scenes but I couldn't place the authority who foisted it. Not Boy Scouts. Not CAP. Not VFW. I could visualize different ranges. Different instructors. Different aged children around me. My neighbors. Then I realized, the last official one was my last high school.
My high school had firearms training. For all students. None of us could get out of it. Firearms were part of being American.
The last high school in Englewood had an awesome physical education program. I must say. Credit where it is due. They taught one sport every two weeks. So if you didn't much care for football, no worries, two weeks later, boom, no more football. We covered track, basketball, lacrosse, tennis (they have tennis courts) gymnastics, swimming and diving (olympic size pool), and firearms. The school is very well decked out.
They put us on a bus and drove us out to County Line Road. W-a-a-a-a-a-a-y out there, now all built up with new houses and malls. I despised every second of it. I resented very strongly being forced to touch guns. They're filthy noisy dangerous complicated things. Too much can go wrong. I was such an incredibly miserable little asshole. I hated everything, but I especially hated that. I did not want to have anything to do with guns. I'm too clumsy. Honestly. I really do need to stay away from such things as guns and chainsaws, machetes, and swords.
You could put an EYE out with those things.
However. I also recall being pleased with my score. (And I was a very good shot in basketball. So long as no goofball is prancing around me disrupting my shot.)
Suck it, Dopes, I'm a better shot than you are. With guns and basketball. That was my attitude on the bus on the way back. There are two particular scenes that are locked into memory as photographs that come with feeling and with scent attached to them. Inside the bus, turned off County Line Road onto an elevated dirt path bouncing along in the shade under a row of cottonwood trees to the shooting range well away from the road. Then another out of the bus and on the range in the sun aiming the rifle at a distant target with a dirt hill behind it. Aiming to the north toward the city with County Line Road behind us.
Clear as a bell.
But it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to recall it was the high school that arranged it.
And in that last two years there was never any fear of any firearms going off in the school. This was my last school and I did not fit in well at all. I was so totally over changing schools. Making friends there was the most difficult of all the schools. And being a little dork didn't help. Not because of them, rather, because of myself. I was tired of making friends and having the rug snapped from under me.
(Later, fitting into work became difficult too. I used to be ace at that kind of change. But then it became too difficult. Mr. Freud, Sir, is our time almost up? )
5 comments:
Well said.
Fear of profiling paralyzes our society from acting effectively against sociopaths/psychopaths. This Cruz kid was an obvious time bomb, as were the Tsarnaev brothers, etc. etc. A mountain of evidence before they exploded. FBI simply watched them. Why so passive? Fear of being labelled racists/bigots by the usual suspects.
Good points, but it's also the Lefty non-judgmental "culture", it's the Lefty entitlement "culture", it's the Lefty "you can't put this boy away because he's a menace to society" "culture", it's the Lefty "criminals have rights" "culture".
It's also the Lefty-inspired "God is dead" "culture" and the New Morality, which tyurned out, to the surprise of no one, the Old Immorality.
Go back 50+ years or so, back when there were rules, when the bad guys were locked up and/or executed.
That's when things came apart.
I still remember my high school years. At least once a year, we had a phoned in bomb threat. No one freaked out about it, but the school did the right thing and had us evacuate buildings using normal fire drill techniques. Only once do I recall anything being found, which was hidden drugs not a bomb. We went back in, and tried to finish the test, because oddly, these false alarms tended to happen when a major test was scheduled. Ironic, right?
The thing is, if you were a disruptive student that was causing problems in the school; you were identified early on and removed from the campus. You may not have been permanently expelled, but you went to a special campus were security was much tighter. There, you either learned to behave, or you graduated with local law enforcement already knowing your name and face.
I was talking to a friend about firearms training that I didn't like being put through. Oddly, none of it came from any of the military bases. It was all from the general public. He asked, "Like what?"
I had a bit of difficulty putting my finger on them. Previously I had tried to put them out of my mind.
I could picture the scenes but I couldn't place the authority who foisted it. Not Boy Scouts. Not CAP. Not VFW. I could visualize different ranges. Different instructors. Different aged children around me. My neighbors. Then I realized, the last official one was my last high school.
My high school had firearms training. For all students. None of us could get out of it. Firearms were part of being American.
The last high school in Englewood had an awesome physical education program. I must say. Credit where it is due. They taught one sport every two weeks. So if you didn't much care for football, no worries, two weeks later, boom, no more football. We covered track, basketball, lacrosse, tennis (they have tennis courts) gymnastics, swimming and diving (olympic size pool), and firearms. The school is very well decked out.
They put us on a bus and drove us out to County Line Road. W-a-a-a-a-a-a-y out there, now all built up with new houses and malls. I despised every second of it. I resented very strongly being forced to touch guns. They're filthy noisy dangerous complicated things. Too much can go wrong. I was such an incredibly miserable little asshole. I hated everything, but I especially hated that. I did not want to have anything to do with guns. I'm too clumsy. Honestly. I really do need to stay away from such things as guns and chainsaws, machetes, and swords.
You could put an EYE out with those things.
However. I also recall being pleased with my score. (And I was a very good shot in basketball. So long as no goofball is prancing around me disrupting my shot.)
Suck it, Dopes, I'm a better shot than you are. With guns and basketball. That was my attitude on the bus on the way back. There are two particular scenes that are locked into memory as photographs that come with feeling and with scent attached to them. Inside the bus, turned off County Line Road onto an elevated dirt path bouncing along in the shade under a row of cottonwood trees to the shooting range well away from the road. Then another out of the bus and on the range in the sun aiming the rifle at a distant target with a dirt hill behind it. Aiming to the north toward the city with County Line Road behind us.
Clear as a bell.
But it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to recall it was the high school that arranged it.
And in that last two years there was never any fear of any firearms going off in the school. This was my last school and I did not fit in well at all. I was so totally over changing schools. Making friends there was the most difficult of all the schools. And being a little dork didn't help. Not because of them, rather, because of myself. I was tired of making friends and having the rug snapped from under me.
(Later, fitting into work became difficult too. I used to be ace at that kind of change. But then it became too difficult. Mr. Freud, Sir, is our time almost up? )
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