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I have been wanting to post something about this issue for years, but found others to talk about. However, the time has come that I MUST do it NOW! Thanks to my good friend and Marine brother, a retired Sergeant Major of Marines, who sent this to me this morning.  I enjoyed it and agreed with it so much that I had to read it twice. This guy has nailed it squarely on the head. 

COMMENTARY- The Blade, Toledo, OH

Parents, not guns, are responsible for keeping kids safe

 

BY MATT MARKEY BLADE OUTDOORS EDITOR

There were 361,119 hunters in Ohio in the most recent season. Michigan had 665,431 hunters. They carried shotguns, rifles, pistols, and lethal archery equipment, so they were armed to the hilt. But no one shot anyone else.

That’s more than one million individuals with firearms, but they didn’t settle a neighborhood squabble, a fight over a girlfriend, a dispute involving territory, a road rage incident, a case of perceived disrespect, or an instance of just looking at someone the wrong way, with violence.

They did not allow their guns, which most own for hunting and personal protection, to become weapons used to settle some petty discord, the result of which we see on the streets of our major cities on a frighteningly regular basis.

In that scenario, which seems to be playing out on an endless loop, lives end — too often those of innocent bystanders — families are devastated, mothers are left to mourn, the perpetrators end up in the prison system, and we pay to support them for decades.

And many of our politicians, community leaders, and sociologists hit the well-worn but ever-reliable default button of blame — Gun Violence. They are infatuated with that term. Make the lifeless device culpable. Focus your condemnation on a piece of steel. Claim that the inanimate object is the actual source of the evil.

There were more than 3,000 youths at the 2022 high school Target Shooting National Championship competition. Every one of them had a powerful shotgun, but nobody shot anyone. There will be more than 4,000 people taking part in the National Matches at Camp Perry this summer, firing rifles and pistols, but as has been the case for more than 100 years, nobody will shoot anyone, despite the abundance of firepower and ammunition on site.

Then we hear about a six-year-old in Virginia taking a handgun to school and shooting his teacher. The national news calls it Gun Violence, but nobody demands to know where he got the gun, where did he learn to use it, and where are his parents.

Two teens arrested after a recent brawl at a Columbus mall were found to be carrying fully-loaded handguns. In a Cleveland suburb, two boys, ages 12 and 13, were charged with aggravated murder for shooting down a 14-year-old schoolmate. The cases keep rolling in, and we lump them all into that convenient Gun Violence folder.

Much closer to home, the examples are equally abundant.

A 16-year-old is arrested for shooting and killing another teen near the playground area at Ravine Park Village apartment complex in East Toledo. A convenience store on Phillips Avenue is robbed by two gun-toting teens, and one of them dies in a shootout with police.

In January, a 15-year-old girl is found shot to death in a North Toledo alley. Three teens decide to shoot up a funeral in Toledo and two funeral home employees are wounded. A 15-year-old boy is killed and a 10-year-old seriously wounded during a Wednesday night shooting at Avondale and Brown avenues.

Other teens are injured in shootings at two in the morning where the gunslinger is also a juvenile. We have a news conference, bringing out the long faces and the somber tone, but nobody in authority asks mom and dad what their children are doing out at that hour. Nobody asks where they got the guns.

Instead, we make Gun Violence the boogeyman. We describe it as if it is the next coronavirus variant or an invasive species that just arrived from a foreign land. No one dares demand some personal responsibility from the parents of the youths involved in these shootings and other crimes.

We hear about these “violence interrupters” who are going to ride into town, work the streets, and put an end to kids killing other kids. That approach turned out to be a band aid that didn’t stick when applied over a metastasized gargantuan tumor, and a colossal waste of time, and money.

Still searching for a magic potion, we find a program from Kentucky. This is going to fix our Gun Violence problem. More programs, more government money, more meetings. But nobody wants to talk about parenting or your responsibility for the children you bring into this world.

When a juvenile believes that picking up a gun, pointing it at another human being, and pulling the trigger is the way to solve their problems or take what they want, we’ll have to go a lot further than Kentucky or Chicago — maybe to Heaven above — to find the solution. Because nobody wants to dare mention the source of the issue.

Kids learn a lot at home — both good and bad — and if home shirks this responsibility, then there are plenty of nefarious outside sources ready to fill the gap. And when kids see that irresponsible behavior is acceptable, as well as a lack of concern and culpability for their actions, they often take these same traits into a troubled adult life.

Like many kids, I found that my father was a very effective violence interrupter. You treated your neighbors, teachers, women, law enforcement, and your friends with respect because, from the earliest age, that is the way you saw your role model treating other people. And you did not want to transgress and end up in Dad’s court.

While searching for an appropriate and acceptable description for the kind of leadership we need at this critical juncture, when kids killing other kids has become so common, this came up — a comment from a Toledo police officer following yet another slaying involving our children.

“We need parents involved in kids’ lives. We need structure. We need routine. We need discipline. We need rules and boundaries,” this female officer said.

That should have been the mic drop moment that ended this circus of news conferences and proclamations and addressing this issue with wads of money and more bureaucratic folderol.

She nailed it, but I don’t think that perspective has been raised by anyone in authority ever since.

Contact Blade outdoors editor Matt Markey at: mmarkey@theblade.com or 419-724-6068.

My question has always been who is responsible when when a 10 or 12-year-old takes a gun from home to school and kills someone? No one wants to place the blame where it should be. instead we feel sorry for the parents, Oh my it’s so sad that my 10 year-old Johnny shot and killed his best friend over an argument. R U shitting me? Furthermore, the parents cannot believe that their son did something so horrific. It’s those damn slack guns laws. Really?

I know I will be criticized by some as being crazy or out of touch with reality, but I believe we should lock both parents up for ten years. Put that kid in a juvenile home and get his ass straightened out once and for all. It is time we start looking at who is actually responsible for a 10 year-old killing another kid.  Nuff said, and bring it on liberals!

 

Originally posted 2023-06-14 15:21:37.

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Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity?

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It’s not often I post something of my own, I usually post things from others blogs, or from emails I receive, but I do often make some introductory comments. But I am pissed (sorry if you have virgin ears, but I mean I am so damn mad, much madder than I have been in a long, long time)! This shooting in Parkland, FL, isn’t near me, as I am on the gulf coast (snow bird), but where it happened isn’t relevant.

Seventeen people died a brutal death, many young children, who may still be alive and enjoying this weekend had someone, some person done their job.  And what really frosts me is this is not the first time intelligence failed to be followed through on because it wasn’t given to the field offices that needed to know it.

I grew of age in an organization where the “boss” was responsible for everything the unit did or did not do — the good, the bad and the ugly — albeit I always tried to push the “good” down the chain to Marines who were really responsible for the successes. Some heads need to roll, and my first bowling ball would be the Director’s. And then I would keep going down the chain busting everyone’s along the way until I got to that civil service worker (agent I guess) who’s job title included forwarding intelligence to the proper field office who have a need to know it FAST. Every body from that person up to the boss needs to be held responsible for the death of those seventeen people. I’m not a lawyer, but if there is some way to charge them as accessories before the fact, they’d see their day in court.

I don’t know any FBI agents personally, but I’m certain there are some highly dedicated, honest, hard-working Americans in that organization, and even though they are always portrayed in the TV Cop shows as the bad guys – the “feds” – I’m sure they have thwarted many bad things we will never know about. Those brave men and women have been beat up so bad in the last year by the media, by the politicians, liberals and conservatives alike, for their screw ups and failings, but that’s all been on the leadership, not the field agents. God bless them. The FBI is, I believe, the largest swamp in the federal government and it needs to completely drained of its leadership and start anew — NOW!

Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity it reads on their insignia. What a shame to have had that tarnished time and again by its leadership over the last year or so.

One question, does that person who was responsible for passing on that information still have a desk at the FBI? As an American, I demand to know the answer to that question, and so should you!

Originally posted 2018-02-17 09:56:04.

Recent Posts

Shoot?

4 Comments

I had some very limited training in my Marine career in what we called Close Quarter Battle (CQB), I think they still call it by that name. I am by no means an expert in this field, but that training certainly opened my eyes to the split second decision process. These naysayers who make comments like some  in this article about “why didn’t he shoot the gun out of his hand,” need to go to the pistol range just once. They haven’t a clue, they are fools who know not what they are saying. And the problem is some are from the MSM and lots of Americans follow like sheep.

The woman with the advanced Harvard degree says, “Why did the cops shoot him so many times? Why not just wound him?”

The sophisticated lawyer, describing a mentally ill man charging the police with a knife asks, “Why didn’t they just shoot the knife out of his hand like they used to?” The guy at the gym says, “But he had his hands up!” The “expert” tells an audience of police officers, “It was just a small screwdriver.”

Unfortunately for officers on the line, thousands of comments like these are made by untrained civilians who are educated by what they see in the news, movies, TV and social media. Too often, reporters, politicians, community leaders and activists who assume they know what happened leap to judgment, immediately proclaiming officers as trigger-happy, racist or failing to resolve the situation

Too often overlooked in all the furor and outrage are the facts of the incident, the reality of human dynamics and how police are trained. Ninety-five percent of officers go through their entire careers without discharging their weapons. Contrary to public image, officers do not wish to be in a deadly-force incident and do everything in their power to avoid it at all costs, often times to their own peril. There are about 34,000 arrests each day in this country and well over 10 million a year, and in many of those arrests suspects are taken into custody safely even when many are extremely violent. Only a very small number result in shots fired.

Is it possible for us to pause and consider the realities for our police officers when they are involved in a shooting incident? Our book “Shots Fired: The Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, and Myths about Police Shootings” was written to provide citizens with a glimpse into the police world and the experience of officers in deadly force encounters.

Among those myths:

Hands up, don’t shoot? Police officers are trained — training that is quickly reinforced by the realities of the job — to be cautious of the subject with hands in the air. What may look like surrender to an untrained observer is frequently a ploy to lure the officer close enough for an attack. Or, when gunshots are exchanged, what looks like surrender may be the involuntary response of a subject who has been shot.

Why not just wound? In the world of policing, officers shoot not to kill and not to wound but to stop the threat. That threat is rarely stopped by a single bullet. Rarely, except in the world of fiction, does a single bullet knock someone down. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers, had been shot nine times, several of those wounds fatal, and he continued to toss bombs and shoot at the Watertown police. A person who has been knocked down remains a threat. Those who would have the officer “just shoot him in the knee” miss an important fact. Even assuming the officer can successfully hit that small, moving target, the subject still has both hands free to continue shooting.

As for shooting that weapon out of a subject’s hands? Many shooting events are sudden, surprising and evolve in seconds. In those seconds, while the subject has a weapon out and is shooting, the responding officer has to form the intention to respond, draw the weapon, ascertain that there are no innocents in the line of fire and then return fire — often while being fired upon. Those subjects are often fueled by drugs, rage, adrenaline and mental illness. Individuals do not stand there and present themselves like a silhouette. A twisting, turning, violent human being makes it impossible to just shoot someone in the leg or arm.

As for the assertion that an unarmed person isn’t dangerous? ‘Unarmed’ doesn’t have the same meaning to a police officer. Nearly 40,000 police officers were assaulted in 2015 with hands, fists or feet. More than 3,000 people are killed every year by unarmed assailants. Eleven percent of all officers murdered in the line of duty from 2013 to 2015 were killed by unarmed persons. And far too often overlooked? In every encounter with a police officer, unarmed simply doesn’t apply — the officer’s gun is always available.

Let’s bring the facts into clear focus to create better understandings nationwide about the police and the realities they face, often in impossible situations. Before jumping to conclusions about a deadly force incident, consider the police officers’ reality and their perspective.

Joseph K. Loughlin is a former assistant chief of police in Portland, Maine. Kate Clark Flora writes true crime and police procedurals. Their book “Shots Fired: The Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, and Myths about Police Shootings” (Skyhorse Publishing) is out Tuesday.

Originally posted 2017-10-25 09:05:05.