"... before staff sent him back to class despite finding images of bullets on his phone and disturbing drawings at his desk, the superintendent told parents in a detailed letter.... The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a threat assessment of school shooters, said that 'the path toward violence is an evolutionary one, with signposts along the way.' One such signpost: 'fantasies of destruction or revenge,' including in drawings. According to the American Psychological Association, 'access to or fascination with weapons, especially guns' can be signs of potential violence 'and may escalate or contribute to the risk of violence.' The revelations in recent days that counselors at the school were aware of the troubling indicators but allowed Crumbley to return to class have fueled anger in the small Michigan community still reeling from the tragedy.
'So many missed opportunities,' Casey Smith, 45, whose 14-year-old daughter survived the shooting, told The Washington Post. 'It’s such a letdown. It’s unforgivable... I know it wasn’t malice ... but incompetence is not an excuse when it comes to something like that.'"
The WaPo article follows on a NYT article, which I blogged
here yesterday.
Typical comment over at WaPo: "There are violent or depressed kids everywhere in the world. Lots of them play violent video games. Only in America are they allowed to act on their fantasies, because they have such an easy access to guns. Ban the guns, stop the massacres."
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36 comments:
Government fails. Parents fail. Peers fail.
Kid begging for help gets no help. Is totally failed by society at every level.
Take freedom from law abiding people.
Makes sense.
Totally.
My high school guidance counselor was useless too. Most of them are. Mine had an education doctorate, so he was especially useless.
"Ban the guns, stop the massacres."
That's what Mao said...
Of course fixing our mental health system, and maybe reviving institutionalization, might also deal with people who used knives and automobiles as weapons.
In my high school there was an active rifle club, a range in the basement, competitions with other schools, guns in the lockers and on the school bus. Northern NJ within ten miles of NYC. No shootings.
Boys weren't the enemy then, for one thing.
School shootings aren't a public problem. They're an entertainment choice. There are so many aspects to bring into America's soap opera homes.
Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that you were so upset that schools were infringing on parental rights?
If you look into the Crumbleys, you will learn they're batshit crazy (google the letter mom wrote to Trump). I doubt that it was a dispassionate conversation when they finally showed up at the school (after ignoring a previous request). They most likely demanded that the administration leave their precious son alone and if he were disciplined they would sue the shit out of the school district and employees individually.
The parents are culpable for enabling an obvious ticking bomb. But the school is responsible for it happening on their grounds after such comprehensive opportunities to intervene.
But yes let’s blame the gun.
Guns are definitely an easy way for mass violence to occur. But far from the only way. If after banning guns a school terrorist were to plant pipe bombs and the media were to glorify the violence as they do today, do we not believe others would seek to do the same.
School shootings are occurring with more frequency not because gun access to easier than ever - it’s not- but because media attention and social focus on school shootings is greater than ever.
Further: the more kids who are stopped, caught in act before they get results, or otherwise humiliated….the more this will decrease.
We know the art of psychological warfare. We should practice it.
Antifa and BLM are allowed to do what they want. Sanctioned rioting(D) and Arson(D). by Nancy's brownshirts. *cue whining about Jan 6th!
All crime that cannot be exploited by the hack press, is suppressed and lied about.
Now we have government school officials dropping the ball... but they will not be held to account. I am shocked the WaPo is taking this angle.
I know - we need more Democrat tax hikes - and do-nothing results.
btw - I am as much against Facebook and Twitter and the democrat hack press narrative machine, as I am these violent video games. then again- video games are a waste of time - violent or not.
God forbid parents inspire kids to get outside and enjoy nature.
Only in America are they allowed to act on their fantasies, because they have such an easy access to guns. Ban the guns, stop the massacres."
Let's see. We have about 4 million firearms in private ownership here. If the military could not properly evacuate Afghanistan, how do you expect state and federal bureaucrats to confiscate all those weapons?
I recall a saying from pro-gun advocates in the 60's, "If you criminalize guns, then only criminals will have guns". It didn't make sense to me then, but it does now.
And let's ban SUVs because one of them killed a bunch of kids and grammas in Waukesha.
Animal fur guy gets 4 years.
this guy gets 9?
"A #BLM activist has been sentenced up to 9.5 years in prison for his role in using mortar fireworks to burn officers at a BLM riot. Brandon Pack, of Columbus, was convicted on multiple felonies for injuring 21 officers. His bail was fundraised on @GoFundMe."
Go Fund Me, you say?
First you ban guns, then you ban knives, then you ban baseball bats......
Where's the legislation to ban SUVs?
"contrary to the delusion of those low-information citizens who think the fetus is about to acquire a constitutional right to life "
I support a right to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, but the cavalier attitude to human life by some of its supporters makes it awfully hard.
Ah but guns are banned on school grounds.
Typical comment over at WaPo: "... allowed to act on their fantasies..."
'Allowed': not really. If you really wanted to put forward a cognizant argument, you'd probably use the word 'means', but this isn't about that.
I'd say that there are tens of thousands of Americans who play both violent video games, watch the typical Hollywood gun-violent movies, and also own a variety of guns. Yet somehow they don't have fantasies of actually going out and shooting people.
Am I correct to conclude that all the money spent by the school was a waste of time and money? Likely not an isolated instance. For such a failure, you must wonder how much damage they inflict instead of help.
"Ban the guns, stop the massacres"
If only big cities did that. No more gangbanging, no more drive-by shootings, no more rising homicides, from Philly to Baltimore to Atlanta to Chicago. Just ban the the damn things, problem solved.
Ban the guns, make it easy to rape women.
I think one of the biggest problems we have in America is that our people in positions to make proper judgements on others, or to take proper action on others do neither.
Our counselors and psychologists seem largely to live in a world of their own and when confronted with very real-world red flags, seem to look at it as just another appointment. "Our time is up now. We'll pick this up again next week."
Our school security officers, and local sheriffs or police seem to either be handcuffed from taking action, or simply not willing to do so.
How many of these school shootings are done by individuals who all but stood on a table in the center of town declaring they were going to kill other students the next day? And...what of the parents? Not just of this kid, but of all the others who have done this horrific deed?
Are we all so mired in our own worlds that we cannot see danger when it's slapping us on the head?
WaPo is mistaken: "Only in America are they allowed to act on their fantasies, because they have such an easy access to guns. Ban the guns, stop the massacres." The Crumbly child was underage (15) and was prohibited by law from buying a pistol. His parents bought the gun and gave it to him. The gun was not the problem until the parents bought the gun. Consequently, the parents have been criminally charged.
As to why personnel at the school did nothing, we might want to find out why. Were some potential actions they could have taken proscribed by law or official protocols? I'd like to know that answer.
Ah but in K-12 education today incompetence is not a bug--it's a feature. Forty years ago my wife and I were big supporters of public education. These days our beliefs have shifted--sending your child to most local public school systems is a form of child abuse.
Even if every single other gun owner committed a crime using their firearms, my rights of gun ownership and self defense would still exist. Infringe those rights if you will, but don't act like you're doing something good by doing so, because I won't think of your actions as anything but the infringement of my rights.
It seems that because school administrators, teachers and staff can become targets of these nut-jobs they should have enough skin in the game to take all reasonable precautions. In fact, there are lots of stories of unreasonable steps taken in the name of safety. It might be wise to wait for more details in this story.
It is an illusion that bureaucracies can protect schools and society at large from these people and their actions. Once part of a bureaucracy, whether police or school administrators, the motivations change from real caring to avoiding actions that can harm one’s position and career prospects. Just as with school boards, the only realistic path to improvement is through greater involvement of parents who truly care about their children and the friends/classmates of their children. Not all parents are this way, but society has not fallen to the point where there are not enough parents who are willing to act in the best interests of the greater good. Schools should provide open access to parent representatives so they can stay close to developments. I have little doubt that the troubled Michigan teen would have been stopped if the school administrators had brought in other parents to the decision. It’s fashionable these days to speak of stakeholder capitalism. What are parents if not stakeholders in schools?
Ban the guns, turn into Australia.
But at least you can get a nice tan while you're a 'guest' of the government...
Gun prohibition might work but it's never going to happen unless the Omicron Andromeda Strain engineered by Fauci in a secret SPECTRE gain of funkshion lab in the Mandela Quadrant works as designed to kill red state deplorables.
Failing that, nothing will be done except a bump in fundraising on both sides of the issue.
Combining with the post above we see the logic of the left. If a group of black teenagers using $1000 cell phones coordinates a complex smash and grab robbery of a Nordstroms, we're supposed to release them from jail and try to "understand the underlying issues" that drove them to commit their crime: namely, racism and poverty. But when a lonely white kid who has spent years crying for help finally snaps and shoots someone, the solution is to ban guns, not try to fix the problems in society that drove him to loneliness and exacerbated his madness to begin with?
Of course, and the reason is that the left will never admit the role that their ideas played in creating the latter's misery: eliminating mental institutions, turning schools into prisons controlled by the inmates, destroying every institution which might have helped the poor boy or given him some structure in his life, and then bombarding him with propaganda day in and day out about how awful he is.
My SIL is involved and employed in the state education agency. He told me this morning that the backstory is this kid had complained repeatedly about bullying without the school doing anything about it. Some bullied kids just get over it with time, some bullied kids unfortunately kill themselves, some bullied kids...
Question is....what are the school officials allowed to do, upon finding such troubling information?
While one might expect some initiative, given the situation, the school admin was not legally allowed to search Crumbley's backpack after the parent/school conference when he returned to class. Whether that was an oversight, or a continuation of rule-following habits, the fact is that the gun would have been found illegally. For whatever that meant, since nobody'd been shot at that point.
Said it before; if current generations of students indicated the fascination with war and weapons and war games common among the earlier kids of WW II vets, half of them would be carted off.
You need to refine what it is that's alarming and what it is that's....a venue of play.
Too bad "liberals" (i.e., "tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State fellators") aren't forbidden from acting out their fantasies. I mean their fantasies of being born or selected or divinely chosen or whatever to rule the rest of us. I think it was Tom Paine who said that just as no one was born wearing a saddle and bridle, no one was born booted and spurred and holding a whip. "Liberals" and other statists apparently think they're born into the booted-and-spurred class.
Field Marshall Freder: "They most likely demanded that the administration leave their precious son alone and if he were disciplined they would sue the shit out of the school district and employees individually."
It's important for Freder to always get well ahead of all known facts as he did with Rittenhouse, Russia Russia Russia, hoax dossier, Covington Catholic, etc.
Yuppie brats vs wimpie little townie. The class struggle boils over. School didn't take action on the bullies? Didn't notify the Cops? Guess why. There's a story here, but you won't get to the truth via the media around Detroit.
It's supposed to be the parents' responsibility to not allow children easy access to guns. I don't think asking adults to give up their guns is the right intervention and it certainly would be strongly resisted.
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