Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

In light of the tragedy at Virginia Tech on Monday I think we should also remember that there was a lot of hand wringing here a couple of months ago when the Pickerington Police staged a training drill at Central High School. I think we should all now value the wisdom of the Pickerington Police Chief and the Central High School Principal. One of the tragedy?’s of Columbine a decade ago was that the local police took over 13 hours before they entered the school building. In the Virginia Tech massacre the police were very prompt in entering the building. Unfortunately the gunman had tons of ammo and large capacity clips so he could quickly reload.

One issue that seems to be coming from this is the fact the students trapped in their classrooms were trying to hold the door shut with their bodies. When our school does a lockdown do they have locking systems that they can bolt the door from the inside and only a key can open the door from the outside. The second issue seems to be communications. Clearly a college campus with 26,000 student is much different than a high school with less than 2000 people inside. I would hope that the security at our high schools and other schools have cameras and locking systems that will slow up the shooter long enough for police to arrive and take control. I think two way communications with each classroom are very important and would be a life saver in the case of this kind of emergency.

Finally when will American society get back to the right of the public to commit someone to a mental institution when they are judged to be harmful to either themselves or society in general. In other words when to we go back to confining people with serious mental issues before they commit a murder or more. We were all terrorized here a few years ago when that guy named Charles McCoy was randomly shooting from his car. He had serious mental issues and he should not have been on the streets of any city. I think we were lucky that he only killed one person.

How many will die before we restrict the rights of those that can not cope with society?



By Being perpared

Agree whole heartedly

I agree with your statements... when does our society decide that we have had enough of this senseless violence and killing because we are so concerned with everyones ''feelings''. Not putting the repeat offenders behind bars or institutionalizing the seriously mentally disturbed has become so common place and that those of us capable of functioning in society are not given a hope of a chance.

In the days to come, I'm certain that we're going to hear about the issues that this young man at VT carried around. We all heard about the pond scum that murdered young people at Columbine. And we all watched while the media blamed society, blamed video games, blamed the other students at the school, and yes, they also blamed the guns themselves. The blame was heaped everywhere except where at belongs... the people that commit these horrible crimes.

We have two problems today... one is that we are too concerned with hurting anothers feelings that we do nothing to prevent this violence and the other is that the criminals have no fear of reprisal for their actions.

By Gun owner

What do we do?

It is a question that has been debated for generations. We have two sides to debate the argument. The pro-gun side that defends their right to keep and bear arms and the side that says no one should be allowed guns. This tragedy greatly saddens me but I am beginning to believe that what saddens me more is the reactions to these tragedies. The more prevailing reaction lately is ?“Oh my gosh, not another one. Hey, did you catch the Indians?’ game last night?…..?” No one is spurred to take action just worry and fret and thank their divinity that no one they knew was affected ?– this time. No one outside talk radio that is and my head will explode if listen to anymore of that.

What do we do? So much of this society is based on political correctness and avoidance. We avoid offending. We avoid hurting feelings. We avoid saying anything that could be even remotely construed as..(gasp) ?– racial. What we are avoiding is dealing with the issues head on.

Do we face the challenge of repealing the right to keep and bear arms? Do we disarm everyone in this country and turn the USA into Mayberry? Or do we go the opposite way and legislate that everyone must keep and bear arms? Would this person have opened fire in a room where it was federally mandated that everyone must be armed and risk return fire? I just don?’t know. I suppose each argument can be sold. (Except at Violet City Hall, I guess.)

How do we deal with individuals proven to be a threat to society? We all know someone in our office or neighborhood who, if we were told was the shooter, would shrug and say ?“It doesn?’t surprise me.?” Is that who we have become? I have a 10 year old in my neighborhood who, if in 10 years, I was told had committed the same atrocities as Jeffrey Dahmer, I would honestly say ?“It doesn?’t surprise me.?” He is violent, sociopathic, destructive, abusive and a host of other issues that cannot almost help to manifest themselves in some sort of episode in the future. I have had the unfortunate experience in having to confront the parents a couple of times and their first response was ?“Well, boys will be boys.?” And the second time they screamed ?“You just hate my kids. Quit picking on them.?” What should I do next? Call the police? Move? The kid?’s sociopathic behavior seems to be considered normal by the people responsible for assuring their progenies understand societal norms.

See what I mean? What do we do as a society to protect ourselves from ourselves?

Here is something I proposed in the past among my peer group. Fence off North Dakota. I mean, what do we need it for? Heck, fence off both the Dakotas. Divide the area into for areas. One is a prison. Empty out all the maximum security prisons nationwide and put them in Dakota and let the strong survive. Let them create their own sustenance. Let them create their own laws and govern themselves. One stipulation though, anyone coming within one mile of the fence is dispatched with extreme prejudice.

One area is a place for these people, like the neighbor kid, we know to be scoiopathic. Same rules as above. The third section is reserved for corrupt political and religious people. And the last for bad drivers.

See what I mean? There is no one-size-fits-all solution. But it is a problem that needs to be addressed at all levels.

Oh yeah, one last thing for those of you that think I am insane, I?’m not really, but I think we should close all our borders, too, and establish incoming and outgoing annual quotas.

Being armed

I am not sure there is anything we any of can do in protecting ourselves from a person willing to commit suicide and take others with him when he completes that act. Since the first week in April brings out the worst in mental health and these shootings I would suggest that we create panic rooms in our schools. That these class rooms can be secured from intruders with a stout locking system and communications with the outside. Equipping teachers with cell phones like the Nextel (walky-talky) and other devices would ensure that they could receive instructions on what to do.

I doubt new gun laws would help because if you have a person willing to commit murder he or she is not going to be deterred with a misdemeanor charge or the threat of one. I do believe we need to look harder at how we handle and process the insane people of this country. For years the mental health experts have urged us to allow these folks that are unstable and might do harm to themselves or others to get well while interfacing with normal people in society. Clearly the VT shooter had been referred to a mental hospital and they recommended that he be committed. Yet a judge would not write the order to commit him. This mental health record then was not shared with the national data base and the shooter was able to buy a hand gun legally.

So the moral of the story is that people knew a few years ago that this was coming but they either refused to accept what they had found or did not have the fortitude to follow through with those findings. Even the two women the shooter was staking in 2005 refused to file charges.

I think our liberal society has found itself caught between a rock and a hard place. First they demand rights for ALL citizens. To force a deranged person to seek and accept mental health treatment is ?“unconstitutional?” and if you commit someone we will send the American civil liberties police your way. Then when the nut case picks up a gun and kills someone or many people they blame it all on the gun. Then we get caught up in the privacy rights debate and medical records can not be released and that includes mental health records so when we sell guns to nut cases the seller has no idea of the mental stability of the buyer and the sale goes through. So to protect the nut case we must lump the law abiding and the sane society into on large group and all of us must take the blame for the ill gotten laws and rights that we all seem to think we deserve.

For nearly 35 years now the nation has not received small pox shots. What happens if a case of small pox comes to the US and they move in next door to you? Should they have the right to NOT be quarantined? Should they have the right to wonder freely up and down our streets and into the places where we shop for food? Clearly Americans need to think about what they are doing to themselves and their demands for rights.

So the question is would an armed teacher or an armed student with a hand gun and who knew how to use it, would they have slowed or saved a few lives Monday at VT?