There should be no debate: we need to talk about guns

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The AR-15 used by the Parkland school shooter is widely available

This past Wednesday was marked by the convergence of a number of happenings on the same day. Lovers and wannabe's were celebrating Valentine's Day.

Western Christianity was marking the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. And at camps in Florida and Arizona, many Major League Baseball teams were opening their spring training.

But for many in America, those happenings were overshadowed by one of the worst school shootings in history which took place at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

A former student, 19-year old Nikolas Cruz, entered the school with an AR-15 in the middle of the afternoon and proceeded to murder 17, including three faculty members and 14 students. Numerous others were injured, many remaining hospitalized today.

Per a piece by Bart Jansen at USA Today, Cruz legally purchased the weapon himself in 2017.

"Cruz lawfully bought the semiautomatic rifle last February, according to Peter Forcelli, special agent in charge of the Miami office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The gun, a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 .223, was purchased at Sunrise Tactical Supply, according to the Associated Press. Federal law allows people 18 and older to legally purchase long guns, including this kind of assault weapon. With no criminal record, Cruz cleared an instant background check via the FBI criminal database."

In the immediate aftermath, a number of students and others came forward making statements that they were not surprised if such a thing were to happen, that Cruz would be the attacker.

At least three students made reports regarding Cruz to adminstrators at the school, per Max Greenwood for The Hill. According to that report, the attack may have at least partially been set off by jealousy and a fight over an ex-girlfriend.

Cruz' mother had died back in November, his father years ago. The couple who took him in at the urging of their own son stated per a piece by Katherine Lam for Fox News that, though they knew he was depressed, they never saw this type of outcome.

“We had this monster living under our roof and we didn’t know,” Kimberly Snead, 49, said. “We didn’t see this side of him.” James Snead, 48, added that he and his wife didn’t know what “everything, everybody seems to know.” “Everything everybody seems to know, we didn’t know,” Snead said. “It’s as simple as that."

That is actually not very unusual, as Erica Goode, a visiting professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, wrote in a piece for The New York Times.

"Tony Beliz, a consultant to schools and corporations on violence prevention who for many years ran the mental health side of the Los Angeles program, which was started by the Los Angeles Police Department, has noted that parents often have no idea what their children are up to. In more than a few cases, a team visiting a home has found weapons or other indications of deadly intention."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had received a tip regarding Cruz nearly six weeks prior to the shooting. You've heard of the public "See Something, Say Something" campaign, perhaps? Well, someone saw something and said something. And the FBI dropped the ball.

U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) made this very observation as related in a Kyle Feldscher piece for the Washington Examiner:

“We all say if you see something, say something. And Parkland community, we saw people reporting, there were 20 calls to the sheriff's department, they responded. The FBI received a legitimate, credible tip and it was not followed up upon. What we have seen in three major atrocities is that the system that was in place simply was not followed.”

Innocence Lost at Sandy Hook

The little children of Sandy Hook are angels, as you can see from the picture above. It was taken in May of 2011 at the Great Pootatuck Duck Race, just as thousands of yellow plastic rubber duckies were dumped into the Pootatuck River and began their journey along the waterway.

It is exactly the kind of event that is usually the hallmark of the idyllic village in the town of Newtown, Connecticut that has been home over the years to celebrities like athlete Bruce Jenner, actor Anthony Edwards, and "Hunger Games" author Suzanne Collins.

The thought that any of the cherubic faces above may have been attending kindergarten today inside of Sandy Hook Elementary School is heartbreaking. Today, the light inside twenty of these innocents was snuffed out when unthinkable horror and evil visited the school.

The son of a teacher at the school entered her classroom today and massacred the children she taught. 18 children in all died in their little classroom.

Two others survived initially, were rushed to a nearby hospital, but succumbed to their injuries there.

20 innocent little children who had nothing to do with the shooter, who posed him no threat, who had no knowledge of his existence before today were dead at his demented hands.

Michael Vick Deserves a 2nd Chance

It was one week ago that the Philadelphia sports scene was thrown into a tizzy when the Eagles stole the headlines from the world champion Phillies, not with their efforts on the field in their first exhibition game, but off the field with the signing of quarterback Michael Vick.

For anyone who has been living in a cave during this past week, let's catch you up on the Vick story.

He first burst on to the scene a decade ago when as a freshman quarterback at Virginia Tech he finished 3rd in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Following his sophomore college season he was selected by the Atlanta Falcons with the first overall pick in the 2001 NFL Draft. Over the next six seasons, Vick grew into one of the most dangerous rushing quarterbacks in NFL history, and took the Falcons to the playoffs twice.

Vick became a major sports celebrity for his on-field excitement, but it was something that he was involved with off the field that would define the last few years. It came to light that Vick was not only involved directly in, but was also the financial backer for a major dogfighting operation. The losing dogs in the already vicious fights would usually be tortured and/or executed, often by brutal methods. Vick took an active role in this illegal and immoral activity.

In August of 2007, Vick plead guilty to federal charges that had been brought against him for the dogfighting operation. He was suspended indefinitely by the NFL. He was sued by the Falcons, and a court eventually ruled that he had to repay $20 million dollars in bonus money, some of which Vick had used to help finance the dogfighting. He went on to serve a year and a half in prison, then another couple of months under house arrest, and has filed for bankruptcy.

So a week ago when the Eagles announced the signing of Michael Vick, it wasn't only an announcement of the signing of a new player, but it was an announcement of the signing of a man who had become a social pariah in recent years. A man who was considered by many to be an outcast from society. Cruel, sadistic, manipulative, and even downright evil.

Radical Islam at Virginia Tech?

Ismael Ax walked his demented soul out into the quiet early-morning peace of his residence hall at Virginia Tech University. It was just after 7am on Tuesday morning, April 19th, 2007. But the peace all around him was about to be shattered by the evil raging in his own personal hell.

He was about to transfer all that evil into a terror attack of historic proportions. A few hours later, 33 people would lie dead at his hand, many others injured, thousands of lives changed forever.

The news reports have and likely will continue to refer to this killer by his legal given name of Cho Seung-Hui. They will refer to him as a student at Virginia Tech who was “disturbed” and that there were “warning signs” that preceded the attacks. But that is not how the killer referred to himself. The now-infamous letter sent to NBC news by the killer contained an explanatory letter which he signed “Ismael Ax”.

Why, considering the climate in the world since the overt terrorist attacks around the world over the last decade, would this demented soul not sign his name, and instead choose one with an obvious muslim connotation? Is there any reason to believe that this attack was not just a random one by a single disturbed individual, but instead is yet another example of radical islam rearing its ugly head?

The name he chose, Ismael, is one that is a uniquely Arabic spelling of the grandson of Abraham, the son of Isaac, who became the father of all the Arab peoples, just as Jacob/Israel became the father of all the Hebraic (Jewish and Christian) peoples.

The attacks occurred on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and one of the professor’s killed was a Jewish holocaust survivor. But these are only the beginnings of the potential radical Islamic ties. He has at least one tattoo in Arabic writing.

His father lived in Saudi Arabia as a young man. His sister works for a contractor to the State Department that controls billions of dollars worth of aid to Iraq. He wrote some now notorious “plays”, the contents of which are now available on the internet. These plays rant about what he sees as American and western decadence, taking swipes at institutions as varied as McDonald’s, the NFL, and the Catholic Church.

Finally, his family had settled in Fairfax County, Virginia, home also to a 29-year old Virginia Tech graduate student from South Korea named Yong Ki Kwon, who was recently convicted of terrorism as one of the “paintball jihadis” who practiced massacres with their paintball guns. Fairfax County…Virginia Tech…South Korean…terrorism…jihad…coincidences all?

Taking all the listed “coincidences” listed here individually could be considered by some as playing into the concept of a “six degrees of separation” game between every major incident that occurs and radical Islamic terrorism. But as a law enforcement professional it is my opinion that taken together they add up more closely to the concept of “probable cause.”

The FBI and other investigators are no doubt beginning to look into these ties. There is reportedly much more on the tapes and in the personal writings of Ismael Ax than has been released to the public at this stage. My guess is that we will learn much more in the coming days and weeks that will thrust the issue of radical islam and it’s involvement as either a direct or indirect cause of this attack into the public debate.

One fact that is not for debate is that once again sin as evil has reared it’s ugly head, whether it has once again taken one of it’s most favored recent forms of radical islam or not. Paul in his letter to the Romans spoke of sin saying “when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”

The Reverend Billy Graham wrote in his work “Angels” referring to Lucifer, originally one of the greatest of all angels, the Angel of Light: “Lucifer became Satan, the devil, the author of all sin; and it is sin that has always deceived, disturbed, betrayed, depraved and destroyed all that it has touched…Satan and his demons are known by the discord they promote, the wars they start, the hatred they engender, the murders they initiate, the opposition to God and His commandments. They are dedicated to the spirit of destruction.”

This “spirit of destruction” is everywhere you look on the news today. It can be found particularly in the results of the most recent work of sin in the life of a man who called himself Ismael Ax. A sinner as a disturbed and depraved individual, yet another tool chosen by Satan to use as a destroyer of human beings.

Radical islam is the root cause of many recent terror attacks, and we may soon learn that it once again has reared its ugly head, this time on the campus of Virginia Tech.