NC Gun Editorial: Easy scapegoats

 Carteret County News-Times

The liberal, leftist Democrat Media Industrial Complex are at war with President Trump, the Republican Party and the NRA. They are blamed for the Valentine Day’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. They are innocent.

Neither Mr. Trump nor Republicans nor the NRA is to blame for that Wednesday shooting.

Being conveniently overlooked — because they don’t fit the “political narrative” — are some facts:

• The shooter was expelled from school.
• Authorities knew he was mentally unstable and had an obsessive interest in weapons.
• Police visited his home 39 times between 2011 and 2018.
• The FBI checked, but didn’t follow through, on a YouTube message saying, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter” that he sent in September 2017.
• The FBI ignored a second, specific warning he sent in January that he intended to kill people.
• His full name was included in both tips.
• On her TV program “Judge Jeanine,” Jeanine Pirro said there are only 13 people with the same name in the U.S., but the FBI didn’t bother to do a database search.
• Though mentally troubled, the shooter passed background checks and bought an AR-15 at age 18. He had 10 weapons.
• Law enforcement, social services and school authorities ignored their responsibility.

In May 1974, in a two-day hostage taking of 115 Israelis, Palestinian terrorists killed 31 Israelis, 22 of them children. Today, said American Thinker columnist Patricia McCarthy, schools in Israel with a hundred students or more have armed guards and staff with concealed weapons. “Why do we in America,” she asks, “value air travelers, members of Congress, celebrities, employees and contents of all public buildings, etc., more than we treasure our school children?” Doorbell cameras offer more security than most of our schools.

Maniacs, many suicidal, target schools. Why? Because they can guarantee mass murder in “gun-free zones.”

Mr. Trump is denounced because he said Democrats did nothing about guns when they controlled Congress and the FBI focused on alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election instead of the Florida shooter. He’s right.

Mr. Trump, the NRA and AR-15s, which can’t fire automatically and thus aren’t assault weapons, will remain. And as the socialist, political left manipulates young people to march in Washington, so will all their political blame.