Another mass homicide took place yesterday. Let us observe a silent moment for those who were killed.
Now here’s climbing onto the hindsight bandwagon.
An ounce of prevention
If we want to have fewer school homicides in the 2020s than in the current decade, school bullying must be stamped out. Mumbling “bullying is bad… m’kay…” is not enough; instead, school environments must be supervised to the extent necessary for preventing bullying from being perpetrated.
Did I hear a collective “that’s impossible… m’kay…” from all the educators out there? OK. So be it. Be my guests. However, as long as bullying continues, other school violence will, too. Feel free to heed my advice at a later time. No, I will not hold my breath; I know that waiting 10 or 20 years for a decrease in yearly body counts is much beyond the attention span of most politicians and officials.
A partial solution that just might be easy enough to succeed is lowering the age of criminal responsibility, and instituting severe punishments, including imprisonment, for bullying. This would provide at least some bullying victims with a meaningful recourse that might prevent them from snapping.
A pound of cure
By now, everybody knows the school homicide screenplay: the killing goes on and on without much outside interference, the perpetrator finally kills himself, and only after this does the police cautiously move in.
What we need are well-rehearsed tactics that allow the police, without undue risk to their occupational safety, to immediately enter the danger zone, and confront the perpetrator, thereby saving lives. As this has been achieved elsewhere for decades, I have no doubt that our highly trained and skilled police force will be able to not only do the same, but do it much better. Could somebody in the police administration make it their business to get the ball rolling? Thanks.
The gun control fallacy, classic soapbox of populists
Finnish politicians, Der Leader in front, are again pushing for even tighter handgun control. In a country where homicides are classically performed using edged weapons (which have been outlawed in public places for a long time), it should be exceptionally obvious that gun control is nothing but cheap hocus-pocus.
Criminals can always obtain both firearms and other weapons, such as explosives. Making it difficult for law-abiding citizens to purchase guns does not help crime prevention, but hinders it. In a situation such as that at the Kauhajoki school yesterday, everyone legally carrying can save lives. This is not the official truth, just the truth.
What do you think? Please post your comments!
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